sonicfanj

[sonicfanj]

Nobody understands Amy Rose (and how would I write her)

Yes, another thread, I need to let some feelings go before I choke myself with them.

So, as I said before, 2023 felt like a huge apology gift for Amy fans, which makes me wonder, so why am I not surprised we are back with the Amy disrespect again just as the year is close to ending? Latest TailsTube really felt shitty, she gives Sonic a picture of herself with a heart portrait (which Sonic replaces) and she receives a broken Motobug from Omega, F U C K I N G A M A Z I N G, merry fucking Christmas. What's worse is that Amy doesn't speak up about her annoyance, she just shrugs it off like a good girl. You know how much I hate the arguments against Riders Amy? Everyone talks about Amy smacking Sonic with her hammer but no one talks about the stupidity he did before, sending her flying with Eggman for the sake of his Blender default cube deserved a beating, she respects herself enough to let go shit like this.

Why do people praise Amy getting disrespected like this and then clap with your ass cheeks when she doesn't express her disappointment? This is the exact issue that's been plaguing this character for a good while, she can't express her emotions anymore, she can't be herself anymore, she HAS to be the boring straight man of her team or else she's annoying. Say what you will about her past incarnations, but Amy has and will always be more interesting when she's an absolute menace, when she's cheesy, loving, and most importantly, fun to watch. Having a permanent frown when her team does something dumb doesn't make her interesting, it makes her boring, bland, it's an Amy that lacks fun.

Let me put it in perspective, if this bland Amy were what we got for an entire line of games, she would embrace her boring life, she would just shut up about being left behind, she would stay behind always because "girls not allowed" or "she ain't invited", and she definitely won't progress with Sonic because she has to be a damn tsundere who has to wait for the boy to make any bloody move. Is this the shit you'd tolerate for 30 years?

Maturity and Tarot cards are not replacements for her entire personality, if you cannot list what are Amy's traits without saying she's mature, doesn't chase Sonic or list what she USED to have for personality while talking about modern, am I expected to interpret you as Amy fan or someone who understands the character? You're a poser at most to me.

Amy used to be so much more, but nowadays it's impossible to determine what the fuck is she supposed to be because of this fanbase, she can't love Sonic because "she's a stalker", she can't use more than the hammer or be strong because "she's a civilian", she can't be on Team Sonic because "she's got Team Rose even though her teammates are never there", she can't show any emotions other than nice because "she's annoying", and she definitely can't be involved in significant ways on the bigger messes because "she has to always 100% solve everything with kindness". That, or the last exit she has is to be replaced with another "cooler" character and Amy has to either be pushed further to the background like in Archie Sonic or be retired, what a fucking joke. The lengths people go to trash on this character again and again, despite getting what you wanted, despite getting rid of everything Amy is, you'll never be satisfied until she's gone.

How would I write Amy?

Okay, enough about my frustrations, it's clear that if it were for this fandom, Amy would suffer the most painful of deaths to get her out of this franchise, they can't understand this character because they don't want to.

But how would I write her? Well, it would be easy to say "write her like X, Y or Z game", but I don't want to do that, and people always have the habit of misinterpreting her portrayals whether it be positively or negatively, and we all know which of the two is.

Here's how I see it:

-Amy is an optimistic person who always lights up the entire room when she's in it, you wouldn't be able to be sad while she's in (she won't allow it lol)

-But she's also someone with a lot of energy, a facet that she shares with her loved one, she can get bored easily if she's doing nothing or doing the same things every day

-When it comes to love, she's a full on ride or die. Take for example Valentine's Day, she'd shower you on a lot of gifts and take you to romantic dates every year, she never forgets, but she also makes sure to cater to her partner's needs, not just her own

-Many of her accomplishments come from her undying determination, if something feels hopeless, she'll try again and again until it works out

-Amy is kind to friends and foes alike, unless they are evil for the sake of it (Eggman). She knows if her foes are either misguided or too scared to fight back the forces that pushed them to that path, so she guides them to the light through her natural kindness

-She is as much of a girly girl as she is a tomboy, one day she might be cooking, baking, making some cute decorations or simply window shopping, the other she might be speeding through a meadow, competing in tournaments or training her strength

-Amy will always tell how she feels to the world, love, anger, sadness, happiness, fear, you name it

-She has an undying love for adventure, although she can't live a nomadic lifestyle like Sonic, she can spend days outside of her home on the other side of the planet

-She goes after Sonic because she always knows there's fun to be had around him, even if her feelings don't get reciprocated (much to her frustration), the adventures they share make it worth the chase

-Amy is unwilling to giving up, whenever she puts her mind on something, she never lets it go until she fulfills it

-She's a natural born leader, but unlike others, she leads by example and attitude, not by giving out orders

-She's quick to make new friends even through misunderstandings, she's just that friendly

Weaknesses

As much as Amy has strengths, she also has weaknesses:

-Amy has poor self preservation, mostly for the sake of trying to help and end up caught in trouble

-A lot of the time she puts others' needs above her own, a strength in itself but also a flaw, as she might not admit needing help if it means ignoring the other

-There are moments where she might end up with more than she can chew, not out of narcissism but not knowing her limits all too well

-Because she can track Chaos energy, sometimes she tracks the wrong hedgehog, but gets so caught up in the moment she ends up hugging them by accident

-Amy can have poor temper if people push her buttons enough times

-Because of her need of proving herself, sometimes she overworks herself to exhaustion

-Despite being strong, she barely reaches to the levels of Sonic, Shadow, Blaze and other powerful characters (but she's definitely above the average folk and the kids)

-Amy worries about her weight, which is why she lashes out in annoyance when others point it out

-When jumping to danger, she doesn't think twice about it

-She can't spend a lot of time alone, maybe it has to do with not having any friends before meeting Sonic?

Powers and abilities (Fandom didn't trademark this phrase, and even if they did, they can go fuck off)

-We all know this one, her Piko Piko Hammer, a supposed toy hammer who's origins are still unknown. Contrary to... certain individuals, the hammer is not what makes Amy strong, Amy makes it stronger than it looks. With it, she can hit enemies, catapult herself to the air and also spin with it in mid air to create the illusion of flying. She can also amp it with energy to create shockwaves and tornados out of it. Adept on it's use, Amy is a formidable rival against those who stand against her. However, let's say that she loses it or gets destroyed, what happens now?

-Amy has learned a lot from the hammer but she's also wanted to learn as many of Sonic's abilities as possible, when going after the fastest thing alive, it's kind of natural that she wanted to be faster. When it comes to her speed metric, she can go to Mach-2 speeds with little effort, she's not faster than Sonic or Shadow, but it's still impressive. She's also learned a couple of Sonic's moves, not all but still a good chunk, spinjump, spindash, homing attack, boost, light speed dash, and even his multi lock from Lost World. Amy wasn't born with any of these stuff, with no Sonic on sight to learn from, she had to learn herself by memory, forming clunky versions of said abilities until reaching near mastery the more she adventured.

-Amy's own foresight wasn't something she was born with, like many things, she's had to get in tune with the forces of Chaos herself. The cards haven't told her where to find her destined encounter, Amy felt where they were after many attempts of using her cards. After a long while, this foresight grew into a full on sixth sense to the point of not needing the cards to track down Sonic or anyone anymore, as such she also gained sharper senses (sometimes they fail her but that's besides the point). With the cards, Amy is also able to attack in different ways, but they're weaker than her quills and especially the hammer, but they work efficiently for transportation, like giving herself a small glide and jump height or using them for an improvised mono wheel, not as fast like on foot but fun nonetheless. She can read the future to certain extent, but those readings are always so vague and cryptic she prefers not to dwell on them too much.

-But what about Chaos Energy? That's an entirely separate subject, because of recent outings we know she's capable of using the Chaos Emeralds to go super, the power only goes to the same level of Tails, Knuckles, Mighty and Ray though. But when it comes to the raw emeralds, she can use them individually to activate their desired effects. As I said, she's a walking Chaos tracker, she just knows where Sonic is because of his Chaos energy, same as how he located Emerl, the catch is that she doesn't know she is and attributes it to natural intuition.

Endgoals

-Marry Sonic the Hedgehog and earn his respect (I know some idiots hate it, but face it, Amy was created to be a love interest, she wouldn't exist if that position weren't necessary)

-Share her life with the people she loves

-Learn to be more independent

Conclusions

Okay, I'm really sorry but I needed to vent my frustrations, and that's because this year was so perfect, we got everything we wanted and more out of Amy, but then what happened? She's back at being made fun of again, and she can't express obvious disappointment or else the fanbase storms her house with forks and tourches. Whenever I repeat time and time again that she's not allowed to express herself, this is what I mean, and yet the fanbase plays it deaf and pretend nothing changed because she doesn't break their fragile sense of masculinity anymore. I don't even expect my entire chore list to be exactly what I want out of Amy, she's much simpler to write than most people think, what I ACTUALLY want is for SoA to respect her legacy, her past, who she was. Amy doesn't need to change, she never did, all she needed was to be respected on these stories (and given better gameplay opportunities because the Advance gameplay SUCKS), that's fucking it, she never needed to lose who she was, that just sends a bad message of "you're not good enough unless you become a people pleaser", and she ain't no people pleaser.

I don't want to gatekeep this character, but given all the shit Amy fans went through, I have the need to. Besides, and this is personal, her struggles, efforts and accomplishments made me believe that there is hope if you don't give in to the darkness, in a way, she helped me out of my hopeless state even if just a bit.

Sega could've just given up on Amy after the 90s, games were growing and tropes were being forgotten, the position of love interest wasn't necessary anymore, she could've died here and there without reaching Sonic Adventure while a new character took her place, only remembered as a relic of the past not worth revisiting from a forgotten Genesis add-on. But this is not the timeline we're living, she's still here, reaching far across new frontiers, another part of her history that made me want not to give up as much as I want to.

I hope that we are not back to the era of Amy being an unwelcome presence to the "classic trio" and that all of my fears are just bullshit, but Sega does not have a good track record when it comes to Amy, much less the fanbase, who have made any and all attempts possible to exclude Amy from having any good things.

[sonicfanj]

It might surprise you to know that Knuckles actually started as a dinosaur due to popularity of Jurassic Park at the time brainstorming started on him. His bent tail is actually a carryover of that design. Also, he was never supposed to be a friend either.

Though I don’t have the links on hand to confirm what I remember (Sonic Retro has them all or you can ask @greenyvertekins who tracks all of this stuff), what led to Knuckles was one of many internal character contests in Sonic Team. Instead of another friend however they wanted an enemy or rival. For a while the rival idea was run with to the point that they had actually considered a character who was even cooler than Sonic that he would be envious of. A lot of these ideas were still present when Knuckles design was finalized, which was before he even was given a name no less attached to Sonic 3 in any clear fashion. By the time he was the envy of his relationship with Sonic was gone but later revived with him being envious of Sonic. Envy of Knuckles would actually end up on Espio, the main character of (Knuckles) Chaotix whose love of ancient civilizations made him envious of Knuckles living on Angel Island (wild how different the Chaotix are after their Heroes reboot, including actually being a group unlike in the game).

The most important thing to keep in mind however is that come the time of the Saturn, SEGA of Japan considered Sonic a shelved IP. So much so that he went from unpopular to completely unknown. SEGA of America tried to keep him alive, but as they did not control the license they were effectively powerless. It didn’t stop them from trying with an illegal attempt to make a Sonic game resulting in its assets turning into the game Bug. Of course the most popular example is Yuji Naka shutting down Sonic X-treme, which isn’t what actually happened. All he did was retrieve the Nights source code which was being used without his permission, with the Ristar team having already overwritten the original Sonic source code when they used it without permission to create Ristar.

So, if Sonic was shelved, how did we get to having Sonic Adventure at all? Remember that little game called Nights. It is the reason Sonic continued. As it was a Sonic Team it naturally had the Sonic Team logo, but Japanese players had no idea who the character was. In response to this curiosity, Sonic Jam was put together to introduce Japanese fans to Sonic. I’m not sure of the relationship between everything, but during this time the OVA was green-lit, providing the first instance of Knuckles being Sonic’s friend and not a rival/enemy, as well as the beginnings of Sonic Adventure coming together with Sonic Jam’s Sonic World being one of the earliest known prototypes for it.

I’ve never learned what the narrative inspiration was for Sonic Adventure’s story, though I do know that South America was an influence on the aesthetic of the game. However, I have always found it interesting how Chaos and the Master Emerald resemble the Dragon Egg legend Knuckles was familiar with that Eggman used to trick him in the Japanese story of Sonic 3 & Knuckles. But as you can see, Knuckles was not made to foreshadow the Echidna story. It was little more than something for fans to interpret as they would and otherwise explain why he was on Angel Island alone until they expanded on it in Sonic Adventure. I have no doubt that they had ideas back when they settled on Knuckles’ backstory, but at the least it’s not what he was created for.

Knuckles is a Protagonist in Sonic Adventure 2, but why?

So I’ve asked this before, but I’ve never understood Knuckles’ role in Sonic Adventure 2. He is set up as a protagonist (read we see his story and point of view) but his story doesn’t tie into the narrative at all or even serve a purpose for him as a character. Now why do I say that? Well, lets’s look at the story of the game and then Knuckles’ story.

Sonic Adventure 2′s story focuses on the Legacy of Gerald and how it affects the characters. Sonic is affected by his similarity to Shadow and eventually Eggman threatening the world. Tails and Amy are Sonic’s friends who care for him most and get involved with Tails in the long running understanding Eggman more as a scientist, and Amy revealing before anyone else that Shadow is not as ruthless as he appears due to him not breaking out of her hug, something he hasn’t experienced since before the Ark was raided. On the villain side you have Eggman trying to exploit his grandfather’s research and learning secrets about him he never knew which makes him reflect on himself. Shadow is obviously a character trying to fulfill his duty while facing his role both in the story and the conflict of his love for Maria and how that all ties into Gerald’s plan to destroy the world in revenge. Then you have Rouge who’s primary purpose is to tie the government conspiracy instigated by G.U.N together and question Shadow’s existence and purpose while also playing Eggman in case he get’s too dangerous. But what a bout Knuckles?

Well, first thing to take note of is he isn’t even mentioned above at all which should get your attention if you remember the game. His story begins with him breaking the Master Emerald to prevent Eggman from stealing and he soon finds himself competing with Rouge to collect the shards. By the end of the game once it’s restored he uses it’s power to stop the Ark’s final descent to Earth and saves the world. It’s all pretty awesome, except for the small detail that none of it happened.

Now I know that line will probably miff a number of Knuckles fans, especially since it obviously happened and we played it. But the thing is, Knuckles roles are all met with indifference in the main plot. The big revelation in his story that Rouge is good is defeated just by playing the villain side which you are supposed to do anyway which reveals that she is fundamentally good despite her moral failings when you discover she is there for the benefit of the world and stopping Eggman’s latest scheme while also uncovering for the president just how deep G.U.Ns corruption runs and the whole Gerald conspiracy. Her act of charity to Knuckles showing that she is good isn’t necessary and is completely superfluous in the Dark Story. Even her love of Gems is all ready covered in Security Hall making Knuckles’ interactions with her valueless and redundant. So what about Eggman and stealing the Master Emerald? Same thing, but worse. From Eggman’s point of view it never even happens. His entire story is digging up his grandfather’s legacy for his own ends and he never interacts with Knuckles until the final story. In other words, the starting point for Knuckles’ story never happens in Sonic Adventure 2′s plot. that’s absurd.

Obviously though Knuckles’ role in the finale still has to be addressed. If he wasn’t there to cancel out the power of the Chaos Emeralds then they couldn’t have stopped the planetary drop of the Ark. The problem there is that Knuckle’s action is immediately canceled and made a complete waste, nor is it a natural conclusion to his story in the game. He goes through everything he does, and does not reflect anywhere without being invalidated within the actual plot. if he was removed from the game the main narrative would not suffer for it in the least. And since his story does nothing for his character or any other either there is nothing lost for him in the end either.

So yes, as Knuckles has his own story in Sonic Adventure 2 which is about him and his POV he is a protagonist of Sonic Adventure 2. That is a fact and cannot be disputed. However, as the main plot has no bearing on his point of view and his POV has no bearing on the plot or other characters I have to ask a very simple question; why is Knuckles a protagonist of Sonic Adventure 2 if the his story and the Main story both do nothing for him and he does nothing for the other? I’ve asked it before and been told that supposedly Shiro Maekawa had always intended Knuckles to be one of the game’s protagonist, but his role as the game is presented provides no answers as to why. The fact that he can be removed and the only thing that needs to change is why the Bio Lizard warps outside of the Ark speaks volumes about how unnecessary he is. As a result I just can’t see it. Why is he one of Sonic Adventure 2′s protagonist? His story is useless to both him and the plot. If not for the end of Heroes further tying Rouge and Knuckles together he doesn’t even get new characters to interact with and expand his character. Of course as that was only really explored in Sonic X rather than the games even that does nothing for Knuckles in the end. He serves no purpose in Sonic Adventure 2 and really should have never been left in when the finalized story had no meaningful use or interaction with him. Yet, he is in the game, and he is one of the game’s protagonist and I am still baffled by it to this day.

[sonicfanj]

You’re quite welcome! One correction though.

Knuckles was not created to foreshadow the Echidnas.

Knuckles is actually the end result of what started as attempting to design a rival for Sonic. Unfortunately, the character they ended up with doesn’t fit that original concept nor really the role of friend they use him in. Rival, stationary guardian, and friend are all of Knuckles’ core roles, but they aren’t used harmoniously at all and to the detriment of his character usually.

Other than that, this is an interesting argument for using Tikal. I can see it working based on how the whole IP is being worked.

Knuckles is a Protagonist in Sonic Adventure 2, but why?

So I’ve asked this before, but I’ve never understood Knuckles’ role in Sonic Adventure 2. He is set up as a protagonist (read we see his story and point of view) but his story doesn’t tie into the narrative at all or even serve a purpose for him as a character. Now why do I say that? Well, lets’s look at the story of the game and then Knuckles’ story.

Sonic Adventure 2′s story focuses on the Legacy of Gerald and how it affects the characters. Sonic is affected by his similarity to Shadow and eventually Eggman threatening the world. Tails and Amy are Sonic’s friends who care for him most and get involved with Tails in the long running understanding Eggman more as a scientist, and Amy revealing before anyone else that Shadow is not as ruthless as he appears due to him not breaking out of her hug, something he hasn’t experienced since before the Ark was raided. On the villain side you have Eggman trying to exploit his grandfather’s research and learning secrets about him he never knew which makes him reflect on himself. Shadow is obviously a character trying to fulfill his duty while facing his role both in the story and the conflict of his love for Maria and how that all ties into Gerald’s plan to destroy the world in revenge. Then you have Rouge who’s primary purpose is to tie the government conspiracy instigated by G.U.N together and question Shadow’s existence and purpose while also playing Eggman in case he get’s too dangerous. But what a bout Knuckles?

Well, first thing to take note of is he isn’t even mentioned above at all which should get your attention if you remember the game. His story begins with him breaking the Master Emerald to prevent Eggman from stealing and he soon finds himself competing with Rouge to collect the shards. By the end of the game once it’s restored he uses it’s power to stop the Ark’s final descent to Earth and saves the world. It’s all pretty awesome, except for the small detail that none of it happened.

Now I know that line will probably miff a number of Knuckles fans, especially since it obviously happened and we played it. But the thing is, Knuckles roles are all met with indifference in the main plot. The big revelation in his story that Rouge is good is defeated just by playing the villain side which you are supposed to do anyway which reveals that she is fundamentally good despite her moral failings when you discover she is there for the benefit of the world and stopping Eggman’s latest scheme while also uncovering for the president just how deep G.U.Ns corruption runs and the whole Gerald conspiracy. Her act of charity to Knuckles showing that she is good isn’t necessary and is completely superfluous in the Dark Story. Even her love of Gems is all ready covered in Security Hall making Knuckles’ interactions with her valueless and redundant. So what about Eggman and stealing the Master Emerald? Same thing, but worse. From Eggman’s point of view it never even happens. His entire story is digging up his grandfather’s legacy for his own ends and he never interacts with Knuckles until the final story. In other words, the starting point for Knuckles’ story never happens in Sonic Adventure 2′s plot. that’s absurd.

Obviously though Knuckles’ role in the finale still has to be addressed. If he wasn’t there to cancel out the power of the Chaos Emeralds then they couldn’t have stopped the planetary drop of the Ark. The problem there is that Knuckle’s action is immediately canceled and made a complete waste, nor is it a natural conclusion to his story in the game. He goes through everything he does, and does not reflect anywhere without being invalidated within the actual plot. if he was removed from the game the main narrative would not suffer for it in the least. And since his story does nothing for his character or any other either there is nothing lost for him in the end either.

So yes, as Knuckles has his own story in Sonic Adventure 2 which is about him and his POV he is a protagonist of Sonic Adventure 2. That is a fact and cannot be disputed. However, as the main plot has no bearing on his point of view and his POV has no bearing on the plot or other characters I have to ask a very simple question; why is Knuckles a protagonist of Sonic Adventure 2 if the his story and the Main story both do nothing for him and he does nothing for the other? I’ve asked it before and been told that supposedly Shiro Maekawa had always intended Knuckles to be one of the game’s protagonist, but his role as the game is presented provides no answers as to why. The fact that he can be removed and the only thing that needs to change is why the Bio Lizard warps outside of the Ark speaks volumes about how unnecessary he is. As a result I just can’t see it. Why is he one of Sonic Adventure 2′s protagonist? His story is useless to both him and the plot. If not for the end of Heroes further tying Rouge and Knuckles together he doesn’t even get new characters to interact with and expand his character. Of course as that was only really explored in Sonic X rather than the games even that does nothing for Knuckles in the end. He serves no purpose in Sonic Adventure 2 and really should have never been left in when the finalized story had no meaningful use or interaction with him. Yet, he is in the game, and he is one of the game’s protagonist and I am still baffled by it to this day.

[sonicfanj]

A holiday Tikal!

[sonicfanj]

A mouth-watering fuck-ton of hand angle references.

By Shadowcross on DA.

[sonicfanj]

Concept artwork of Metal Amy Rose, from ‘Sonic Superstars’.

[sonicfanj]

As Rosy overgrown in vegetation has become a genre I enjoy, I'll take a moment to share some lore.

For those who don't remember, I prefer to perceive Amy as mediumistic rather than magical. For those unfamiliar with what I mean by mediumistic, in short I mean like a medium between the physical world and the supernatural world of spirits and gods. So, for my future works that is how I'll be handling Rosy. In addition to exploring Amy more as mediumistic, one of the things I would like to do is to explore negative relationships with nature beyond just Eggman's rampant industrialization without a care for the consequences of his actions.

In Rosy's case I will be looking at animal sacrifice. I won't go that deep, and explaining it here will be difficult since there are aspects of my future works that are not ready to share yet. That said, as Amy/Rosy is mediumistic, she is seen as valuable in either sacrifice to appease the gods or as a simple medium. More specifically though, she is a nature element medium. This means that unlike other animal people (I will be revealing a name for them later that is not Mobian) , Rosy can talk with more nature elementals than just the small animal friends from the games. What typically gives her away though is if any nature gods are present. Note, when I use gods I mean any such dietic entity from something on Dark Gaia and Solaris's time and space shaping level down to a meager god of a family heirloom shovel. This means that the effect on Rosy from the presence of a nature element god varies based on their strength. In all cases though when in the presence of any such deities, any non-medium around Rosy can hear their voice and moss, vines, and flowers will start growing from Rosy's body. If you saw this pic from @flowerqliphoth on Twitter (now X)

then this should give you a good idea of what she experiences. If a god is particularly powerful though a whole tree could very well grow from Rosy leaving her trapped in it until they either free her or leave, which is what I was trying illustrate above. And that's all for lore at the moment.

On the art itself, I wanted to experiment with a way to draw reasonably quickly that also prevents me from getting too detail oriented. The idea is to create a style that is messy on purpose so I can ignore my perfectionist tendencies. Even then, I used too thick of a brush and will need to experiment more with the coloring approach so it can be both messy but a tad cleaner. I hope everyone enjoyed this little lore dump and isn't afraid to ask any questions that you have. I'll be happy to answer!

Thank you!

[sonicfanj]

Lock: the Mage of Cards - Prologue

The following is a work of fan fiction based on Sega Sammy Holding’s Sonic the Hedgehog™. by Joshua D. Tarwater and is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by SEGA SAMMY HOLDINGS.* *SEGA SAMMY HOLDINGS retains full rights over the Sonic the Hedgehog™ intellectual property and can terminate or take control of this work at any time.

Not all stories start from their beginnings. If it were so, then the tale of Lock, the Mage of Cards, would have begun some time before the mage first donned her distinctive purple dress. The beginning of her tale would have been found on some distant star in a past long forgotten, when a people lost their home to a great evil they would lead to this star, Lock’s home. An evil that she joined Sonic the Hedgehog in defeating when he inherited the battle of the Starfall Ancients. A battle when Lock first truly realized that her potential for magic far exceeded the beliefs of the struggling to remember who she really was Amy Rose. But while the beginning of the tale of Lock, the start of her story came after that battle, when Amy Rose sought out a means to train herself in the use of magic as part of her journey of self-refinement. And so it was in a waking nightmare that the adventures of Lock began.

The nightmare that Amy woke to was one of many sensations. Several of them were very wrong, but confusion and the darkness she woke to were at the forefront of her mind.

‘Ugh… what? What happened?’

The dazed thoughts of the girl were not particularly useful, but she could hardly collect her thoughts from the lingering trappings of sleep. A sleep Amy’s every instinct told her was not natural or welcomed. Much as she wanted to try and collect her thoughts on her instincts, her growing consciousness was growing equally distracted by the sensation of a delicate sheet of some kind against her face. She desired to pull it away, but her arms did not respond to her desires, and she grew frustrated. Turning her frustration to energy, Amy sat up as she swung her hips and waist in tandem.

‘Awah~!!’ the thought came rather than escaped as Amy discovered several problems that accompanied her upward swing. The most notable of these was her difficulty balancing as she could not extend her tail to counter her movement. ‘Eh~! Really! What’s happening!’

Under most circumstances, Amy would have voiced her frustrations and confusion, but she could not open her mouth and her voice refused to come out for even so much as a whimper. As her arms were still refusing to respond to her desires, Amy’s self-examination had to start with her unresponsive tail. Naturally, as it was unresponsive, her next choice of focus were her legs. Fortunately, at least at her hips, her legs responded, though they remained as unresponsive as her arms and tail from her knees down. Still, she could at least feel them all the way to her enclosed toes awkwardly flopping against the ground. It was not much movement however as something kept her thighs fast together, and the familiar feeling of tights against another fabric assured Amy she was likely wearing a mermaid style dress. The attire was a far cry from her usual red dress, but also the jumpstart her mind needed to remember what had happened.

‘That’s right, I was looking for a magic cloak to help me get better at using magic! The dumb thing wrapped me up, didn’t it!’

Whether she was right or not, Amy fully remembered that her current predicament began when she followed rumors of a magic cloak that could help the wearer train in magic. She was not expecting to have to battle it should she find it and was caught off guard when it engulfed her and stole her consciousness. Fully awake now though, Amy struggled to break free but found her impressive physical abilities were no match for the magical garment. Or more accurately cursed. But the potential for the garment being cursed did not spring to mind as her struggles revealed something far more chilling.

‘Eh… is my… is my tail gone…?’

It was not a question that took a lot to answer, and Amy’s adrenaline kept her panic at bay as she realized that she had indeed lost her tail, fully explaining the loss of balance she was dealing with. The absence of her tail, however, left her with a grim thought and she immediately fell onto her side. Her shoulder did not absorb the impact, the upper extreme of her ribs usually protected by the joint instead directly meeting the cold, hard surface she fell onto.

‘It’s… it’s GONE!!’ Amy’s thoughts exploded at the revelation of her missing limb, and she demonstrated impressive trunk strength as she flipped herself over and smashed her other armless side into the ground. ‘No way! They’re both gone!! So… I’m not tied up… it’s just that THIS STUPID CLOAK STOLE MY ARMS AND TAIL!!’

Shocked as Amy was, her anger overrode her situation and she struggled to rip the cloak with her legs so at least the mermaid dress form it had taken would not hamper her movements. It was futile as again the magic that the cloak was made of easily resisted her strength, and the useless state of her legs below her knees made any success meaningless.

‘It’s okay Amy,’ she tried to assure herself as she lay down on her back and stared up at the darkness beyond the cloth resting against her face. ‘You got into this mess so you can get out of it too. Even if you have to crawl like a worm to get help.’

The prospect was humiliating, but Amy had for a while forgotten why she had sought out the cloak that had transformed her into her currently helpless seeming state. Focusing solely on her physical abilities, she attempted to address her situation, only to realize the futility of any action in the dark.

‘I hope I haven’t gone blind too,’ Amy’s desperate whimper echoed within her own head, unable to escape. Very much like her as she felt a weight of some kind land on her chest and stare at her. ‘I’m really in trouble, aren’t I…?’

The terror of her situation, overwhelming as it was, did not assure the end of the pink hedgehog girl. She was, if anything, resilient and optimistic, full of more energy even in a state like this than most people could imagine exhibiting in a lifetime. Beyond that, she had sought out the transformative cloak to improve her ability to wield magic. That combination would be enough to allow her to save herself to a degree, and the evidence of her survival arrived at the home of the Rabbit family.

“Mother!” a young rabbit girl cheerfully cried out as she skipped into the living room of the Rabbit family home. She was carrying an envelope above her head and waved it enthusiastically. It’s a letter from Amy!”

“Is that so, Cream?” Vanilla the Rabbit asked with a calm demeanor as she wiped her hands on her apron and moved to intercept her excited daughter.

It had been some time since they had heard from Amy who had hurried off on some adventure or another after inviting Cream along to at least see her off. Something had happened to her on her last adventure with world famous hero and adventurer, Sonic the Hedgehog, and she was eager to share a story about a pair of lovers whose love transcended time as well as see to refining herself into a far better version of herself. Vanilla had offered to help Amy with any such refinements, but the hedgehog girl wouldn’t hear of it, claiming it was something she had to do for herself. Not one to hold back the girl who gleefully chased after Sonic and his adventures, Vanilla did not push the matter. However, the lack of communication from Amy in a fair while had made Cream start to worry, and though Vanilla was sure Amy was fine, seeing Cream beam at a letter from her best friend brought a smile to the mother rabbit’s face.

“Shall I read it Cream?” Vanilla offered as she took a seat in her favorite chair with her daughter scrambling into her lap.

“Yes please, Mother!” Cream requested excitedly as the family chao, Cheese and Chocola drifted over on curious wings.

“Very well,” Vanilla allowed herself a chuckle as she accepted the envelope from Cream and opened up. “Oh my!”

“What’s the matter Mother?” Cream asked at the surprise her mother expressed while turning through the pages of the letter.

“I’m not quite sure Cream, but it would seem that Amy forgot to actually write anything in her excitement.”

Amy Rose was an excitable girl on the cusp of being a young woman and it would be no surprise if she had managed something so silly. Cream, however, did not look convinced as Vanilla took note of the envelope the blank paper had arrived in.

“My, there isn’t even anything on the envelope. However did the delivery person know to bring it here?”

“Mother, I don’t understand,” Cream confessed her confusion as she looked back at her befuddled mother. “Our address is right on the letter, and I can recognize Amy’s handwriting from here.”

“Wha–?” Vanilla asked, growing even more confused. “I don’t believe that my eyes are going bad.”

A moment of unusual silence punctuated the confusion of the Rabbit family and Vanila could not be sure that Cream wasn’t making the whole thing up. Not wanting to upset her daughter and having a funny feeling she couldn’t quite place, she decided instead of chastising her daughter to hand her the letter. “Perhaps you can read Amy’s letter for us instead Cream.”

“Are you sure?’ Cream questioned with a worried look for her mother.

Vanilla offered Cream a reassuring smile as she assured her daughter, “Of course. It’s for you after all.”

“Okay!” Cream nodded her head and smiled brightly back at her mother before reading the letter in front of her.

~Hi Cream!~ The letter began cheerfully enough and brought an air of calm to the young rabbit that Vanilla hadn’t seen in some time.

‘Perhaps it really is best to let her work herself through it.’

“I’m so sorry I haven’t been in touch,” Cream continued reading the letter aloud, oblivious to her mother’s thoughts and concerns.

~But you wouldn’t believe the mess I’ve landed myself into this time! I mean, I’ve been in some bad spots before, but I was sure that after what happened to me on the Starfall Islands that nothing could surprise me. I was so~ wrong! I bet you’d be surprised to, but just that I wrote this letter with magic should be surprising enough.~

“Magic?” Vanilla expressed her curiosity with a tilt of her head.

“That’s what Amy says,” Cream insisted, a hint of her mother’s disbelief wedging its way into her consciousness and twisting her tone to something more forceful.

“I actually hope it works and that I’m not the only one who can see it,” Cream continued reading the letter, the words seeming a direct challenge to Vanilla’s disbelief.

~It’d be such a waste too since I get so tired using magic. It’s so funny too since I normally have so much energy, but using magic really takes it out of me right now. I’m getting better with some of the things I can use it for, but the less familiar I am with using magic the more exhausting it is and the easier I fall asleep. I’ve been falling asleep at the most inconvenient of times and I’m probably going to end up falling asleep on the floor as soon as I finish. But don’t worry, I’ll be fine. A little sleep is all I need, and it’s not like I have a choice. It’s too complicated using magic to manipulate a pen and my handwriting looks dreadful. And I tire myself out faster that way too. Ooh~! It’d be so much easier if I had my–~

“Cream, what’s the matter?” Vanilla prodded her daughter as Cream came to a trembling halt in her reading. A look of utter dread had settled onto her features and tears were welling in her eyes at whatever it was she saw on the blank paper.

“I-it’s Amy, Mother,” Cream was on the verge of crying and could barely control herself. “She lost her arms!!”

~I hope that doesn’t scare you too much Cream. I’m not sure what happened, but I really am alright. I can’t use my hammer for more than a seat right now, but that’s not a bad thing since using magic to move around is pretty tiring too and it’s better than sitting on the ground. Don’t worry though Cream, I still have my legs at least. At least I’m sure I do. I can feel this cloak pressing them together and my feet are sticking out the bottom where it parts.

~Oh right, the cloak! Everything will make a lot more sense if I explain that first.

~Well, while I was on the Starfall Islands I kind of stumbled upon the idea that I might be a lot better at magic than I would have ever guessed, so when I heard rumors of a way to train more efficiently, I ran headlong after it. I’m supposed to be trying to refine myself, yet here I am running straight into trouble as always. And it’s so much too. You see Cream, I found this really pretty purple cloak with a stary sky pattern at the bottom, but when I touched it, it wrapped me up and I blacked out. When I woke up It was wrapped around me so tight there was no sign of my arms or that it ever was a cloak rather than a dress. It’s collar totally wrapped around the bottom of my head too and covered up my mouth. I can’t say anything, and my voice isn’t coming out either.

~Actually, now that I think about it, just like my arms I don’t actually feel my mouth. Hold on, let me just check…~

“It’s alright Cream,” Vanilla found herself comforting Cream for a second time as Amy’s letter detailed her coming to the realization that despite her face being full, she seemed to lack a mouth of any kind and had no real way to check since she seemed to have been deprived of her tongue and lips in addition to any jaw functionality. Unpleasant as it was to read, Vanilla had more luck calming Cream down this time as there was no nasty spat between the mother and daughter as had happened the first time. Vanilla’s doubt and Amy’s lacking arms was too much and when she chastised her daughter Cream’s emotions and terror at Amy’s condition revealed that the girl’s emotions were anything but an act.

“But I will have to have a stern word with Amy when next she visits,” Vanilla spoke aside to her comforting of her daughter. “I have no doubt that Amy is quite overwhelmed herself by her situation, but she forgets that Cream is still so young and not at all prepared for such awful stories.”

~It’s a good thing I figured out how to use magic to feed myself. That was the scariest part of this whole adventure. I really thought I was going to die until I figured it out. But it’s not satisfying at all, and I can’t wait until I figure this all out and can enjoy one of Vanilla’s homecooked meals with you again. Even if I could actually eat though, it wouldn’t be good to visit since this silly cloak grows really dangerous giant thorns anytime anyone gets close. I feel like a little kid who can’t keep her spines down!~

“What’s wrong this time Cream?” Vanilla asked as Cream paused, her tone of voice turning confused as she read Amy’s letter.

“I don’t understand mother, doesn’t Amy use that super hair relaxer because she can’t get her spines to cooperate?” Cream asked as she looked back at Vanilla.

Vanilla donned a strained smile as she tried not to let her daughter know that her words would have stabbed Amy deep had she heard them. She could not dispute her daughter’s blunt observation however as the Rabbit family home had become home to more than one bottle of the product in question due to Amy’s frequent stays. And there was no doubt that Amy loved the product as Vanilla had caught her on more than one occasion fretting dramatically over what she would do if they ever stopped making it. She both wanted to look cute for Sonic no less not stab him by accident. The super hair relaxer made her quite confident with the idea of being held in Sonic’s arms snuggly and her silly daydreams would quickly get the better of her.

‘Still, sometimes I wonder if Amy is ashamed of being a hedgehog,’ Vanilla allowed her thoughts to wander a moment. ‘She seems to reject her own nature at every opportunity, and it couldn’t possibly be healthy for her. Perhaps there is still some of this refinement that she seeks that I can help her with after all.’

~That’s really the big problem however,~ Amy’s letter continued, ~is just that I think this cloak really was what I was looking for. Due to all the curses on it I’m completely dependent on magic for everything. Eating, moving, writing a letter, and probably a lot more I haven’t figured out yet.

~It’s just so hard sometimes. I haven’t figured out how to talk with anyone and the veil that showed up with this weird transformation doesn’t seem to let anyone see my face, though I can see them just fine. The hat that came with it isn’t much help either. It’s surprisingly alive, and I think it’s supposed to help me, but all it ever seems to do is pull me into more trouble and get itself into nothing but trouble. Maybe it’s cursed too. The weird Ring-shaped locks that are all over me are on it too. At least two of them to go with the five on me. I’m sure if I can find the keys for them, I can get free and return back to normal, but I’m actually kind of scared to go looking for them.

~The only hint I think I have to them is this weird red string coming out of the keyhole of the Ring on my chest. I think if I follow it, it might lead me to the keys, but you know, whenever I look at it twirling around me, I can’t help but think of the Red String of Fate that ties me and Sonic together. I don’t want to follow it straight to Sonic. I’m not ready to see him yet. I’m supposed to be a lot more refined when I see him, not in a pitiful state like this. So, I think I’ll continue my adventures like this for a while longer and keep getting better at magic until I can find ways around these awful curses that have taken most of my ability to use my body away from me. I’ll try to get better at writing letters too, so you don’t have to worry. Though, I’ve spotted people taking my picture, though not always before this hat goes after them, so if you look up my appearance on the net with Gemerl’s help maybe you’ll see me in this silly dress that has me feeling like a mermaid. Ooh~! I don’t care how pretty it looks, everyone is complimenting it and not me! It’s not even my style!~

“It really is pretty!” Cream breathed a wow sometime later after Vanilla had managed to contact Tails who with Gemerl’s eyes acting as a projector had a number of photos on a wall in the Rabbit family home.

Just like it had been described in Amy’s letter, a girl in a purple mermaid style dress which had its top obscured by a veil adorned the wall several times over. The stary night appearance of the bottom of her dress which flared out from just after a slit began in the dress was shared by the flats that she wore on her feet as well as the underside of the purple witch’s hat that appeared to be attacking the photographer in many of the pictures. In a few of those the purple flat cap atop the girl’s head that the veil was attached to along with a decorative gold chain and two large purple gems hanging from it like earrings was visible. But any defining features were absent save the Ring-shaped locks about her. One per foot, another dangling from the tip of the hat joined by a tiny one on the hatband, the one on her chest and two floating in the air at her sides where her arms would have once dangled. Tails wasn’t sure if he should feel sick to his stomach seeing his good friend like this or just relieved that she seemed okay regardless of her situation. Gemerl, lacking the emotional context of the horror of the scene stated its final conclusion flatly.

“Ninety-seven percent probability of being Amy Rose,” the android stated and made Tails jump.

“What? Really? How can you be sure? There isn’t anything we can use to identify her!”

“Incorrect,” Gemerl, stated. “Despite the matching appearance to her veil and dress, her tights are not opaque based on the difference in lighting per photograph.”

“Of course!” Tails exclaimed and busily set to work on his Miles Electric table. “If you account for material stretch and filter out the color range… There! You get the exact shade of pink of Amy’s fur!”

“Which can be DNA matched to within acceptable parameters for that shade combined with her height and figure to determine a 97 percent match. However, a margin of error must be accounted for as in addition to her missing appendages, she seems to have lost around an additional 17% of her body weight.”

“That’s horrible!” Cream gasped! “She’s withering away!”

“Actually, I think that’s normal for Amy,” Tails laughed and scratched at the back of head. “She’ll go on unhealthy diets at the drop of a hat and shrivel up in no time. If she has to use magic to sustain herself…”

Tails didn’t finish the thought as the word magic didn’t feel right in his mouth. “I guess I couldn’t really say,” Tails sighed. “I’m more of a tech guy and haven’t encountered magic before like Sonic has.”

“But we can’t get Mr. Sonic involved, Cream insisted. “Amy begged us not to.” Like Tails, Cream was aware of Sonic’s stories of being whisked away to worlds of magic and could not argue that he would be more help than any of them.

“I don’t believe it’s just Mr. Sonic,” Vanilla added, even as she made no attempt to hide the concern in her voice for Amy. She was not the only one who was so offput by Amy’s appearance, but she was the one who also had to speak up as the adult on Amy’s behalf. “She said she wants to refine herself, and everything in that letter implies this terrible curse she’s under is helping her do just that. It’s normal to worry for her but…”

“You’re right," Tails agreed, though he looked away and clenched his fist. “We all agreed we’d spend time doing our own thing and getting our own feet under us. It’s just…”

“But she’s Amy, Tails,“ Vanilla assured the two-tailed fox boy who was Sonic’s frequent companion. “She took the time to write Cream, to assure her that she was fine, so we know that she is.”

“Yeah…,” Tails attempted a smile as he looked at the pictures still projected by Gemerl’s eyes. Not seeing Amy’s smile in kind though was not comforting and he could only wonder where Cream found the faith in her friend to stand so resolute as she too looked at the pictures of who they all believed to be the hedgehog girl.

And they were not wrong.

Sunlight near blinded Amy as the purple witch’s hat suddenly blew off of her face where she had fallen asleep in the back of an open bed truck hauling hay.

‘I guess this is where today’s adventure begins.’ Arching her back to stretch out what muscles she had control over without magic, Amy only lingered in the hay a moment longer. Soon, she was airborne and twirling like an acrobat, or as close an approximation as possible dressed as she was, a number of the fortune cards she kept with her twirling around her. As she descended and landed on her feet, only one did not disappear and continued to swirl around her allowing her to stand at all.

Noticing the hat that was her only company stuck in a tree, Amy sighed through her nose. ‘You really are helpless.’

Disapproving as her thoughts were, Amy’s green eyes were smiling behind her veil. She had left the truck in a rather perilous stretch of a mountain path, and it would take everything she knew of magic and likely more to see herself back to safety.

‘Hee-hee,’ she laughed to herself in her thoughts. ‘I think I’m finally understanding why you’re always looking for ways to challenge yourself Sonic.

‘Just you wait Sonic! When I get out of this mess, there’s no way you’ll recognize me with how much I’ve grown. I just know you’ll regret it!’

Though her tone to herself was confident, Amy still spied a nervous glance at the red thread entwined around her in the air. The end opposite of where it emerged from the magical keyhole on her chest was what she primarily sought, and when she confirmed where it was pointing, she promptly traveled in the opposite direction, a handful of fortune cards appearing in orbit around her to help her levitate along. Her path was not in the service of helping the hat that followed her however and it had to rescue itself to chase after her. Of little surprise to Amy, it was not so sluggish in its self-rescue attempt as to not be able to send the hedgehog girl tumbling into more trouble and her next adventure. One she hoped would steer her clear of Sonic for a while longer. However, there were some events in life that were unavoidable, such as the necessity of an umbrella to stay dry in the rain.

Even in light rain making use of an umbrella was ever advisable. Most people about in the isolated mountain village that Amy found herself in did exactly that as they scurried about under the dampening gray skies. Holding an umbrella in hand was impossible for Amy as she sat on an iron bench. A lack of arms made that task unfavorably difficult.

Despite her purple attire, especially the witch’s hat upon her crown, Amy did not stick out in the least. Her invisibility was of little concern to her at that moment. Her current situation was the result of a curse born from the dress she wore. Rather, the cloak that had fused itself shut to her and did things unknown to her arms and tail. Her mouth fared no better, its position hidden behind where the cloak’s collar had completely obscured her muzzle save her nose. It was completely absent as far as she could tell due to a lack of any feeling or even a sense of tongue to feel around for it. Her lips were as absent, and her voice no longer existed. Communication and even movement were impossible for her under normal circumstances due to the curses affiliated with each of the Keyhole Rings adorning her and it was consuming her thoughts. But not fully.

Despite the curses of the Rings on her feet stealing away her use of her legs, Amy could still at least attempt to move her thighs, torso, and neck. Her situation was not hopeless however, even as that rainy morning’s attempts to move her thighs barely managed a nigh fused rubbing together of her upper legs just due to the tightness with which the cloak had fused to her. Even knowing what she should be doing, she did not give up on her physical abilities.

‘Use a little magic to try and help out on the Starfall Islands and get it into your head that you can learn to really use it,” Amy’s thoughts still took umbrage against her own actions. But her thoughts did not give credit to her desire to refine herself after the events on those untouched islands where a world ending entity once was sealed. But she did not dwell on her dissatisfaction either, instead putting every ounce of effort she could into working what leg muscles she could.

‘C’mon Amy, you may be getting better at using the same tricks you did on Ouranos, but you can’t give up on using your body either. It wouldn’t do me any good to get out of this mess and not be able to use it without magic either. If that happened, I’d be better off just staying like this.’

Her thoughts were born of a frustration that had been plaguing her for longer than she could figure out in that moment. ‘How long has it been anyway? I think I might actually be forgetting what it even felt like to have arms!’

A bit of panic settling in, Amy looked up and watched the villagers going about their morning, putting their hands and arms to any number of uses. Holding umbrellas and bicycle handles, taking hold of groceries and exchanging goods, giving handshakes and hugs. Watching a couple embrace caused a sharp pain to course through Amy’s body that she winced at with her all. Her eyes started to water, and she had to keep from sniffling so as not to compromise her ability to breathe. ‘How long has it been since I talked to anyone, no less shared a hug?’

Trying to imagine reaching out with the arms she once had to hug someone, Amy’s efforts were met with the sudden appearance of the last two of the seven Keyhole Rings that adorned her body. These two floated in the air at her sides where her arms would have been, and for a moment she stared at them in wide-eyed surprise.

‘Did they disappear? When did that happen!’

Her emotions betraying her control of what magic she had managed to learn, one of Amy’s fortune cards answered her distress and appeared from thin air, swirling around her, and causing her to jump to her feet. The motion dislodged the witch’s hat, but Amy hardly cared for that as her sudden jump required her to actively control the spell that summoned the card to keep her hovering just a few centimeters off the ground before her curse disabled feet proved useless and left her to fall. It might have been better at that moment she thought to herself though as her action combined with her unobserved state put her on a crash course with an oblivious passerby. The collision itself would have bothered her, but she could not allow it as the cloak would not either and she saw the first thorn start to grow from it that prevented her from even making physical contact with others.

Not allowing it to happen, Amy summoned another fortune card and threw herself backwards onto the bench. She miscalculated the amount of magic she needed and banged her head loudly on the backrest. Her eyes started to water as her vision blurred and her ears rang, but she still pleaded for the safety of the villager.

‘Just keep walking.’

Amy’s thoughts naturally went unheard, but the banging of her skull was an entirely different matter and the hapless passerby stopped to see what the sound was. They saw nothing, however, as Amy focused on keeping herself invisible, a spell that came to her strangely naturally. It also meant that they did not see the lethally long thorns that had grown from the cloak, more continuing to stretch out as Amy struggled to wriggle down the bench and away from the villager. Yet, she could see, even as far down as the flaring end of the cloak, more thorns stretching out of the fabric towards the threat to her isolation. Before anything terrible could happen though, with a shrug the villager continued walking and Amy sighed heavily through her nose as she watched the thorns recede back into the rest of the cloak, making their appearance seem as unlikely as the sun in the night sky.

‘That was too close.’

Sitting back up, Amy sighed again as the witch’s hat suddenly plopped itself back upon her head. Amy paid it hardly any heed though as she leaned back, even as it slid down and into her eyes. She had no control over it, and as far as she could tell it was hapless beyond its ability to always find its way back onto her head.

‘It’s not like I can just let you go either,’ Amy directed her thoughts towards the hat. ‘Two of the Keyhole Rings are on you and if I don’t get them unlocked, I won’t break all of the curses. Though, I wonder if you’re what stole my mouth or the Ring on my chest.’

Looking down at her chest, Amy’s attention did not linger on the Keyhole Ring for long. Instead, it was the red thread that emerged from it that took hold of attention. ‘The red thread of fate…’

While there were many meanings to that phrase, to a hopeless romantic like Amy it meant that on the other end was her destined lover. It was an easy belief to have considering the origin of the end that touched her was above her heart, but she could not see the other end. The string simply faded off, though she had noted that it did surely point somewhere and moved on its own. This simply reinforced her belief though that on the other end was Sonic the Hedgehog, as she had been once told by her fortune cards that the two were destined.

‘It’s only right that Sonic would hold the key to my heart,’ Amy mused and swooned at the idea of being freed by Sonic before shaking her head violently.

‘No, no, no Amy! You can’t go see Sonic like this. You’re anything but more refined. You’re just a mess right now and Sonic getting involved could be disastrous for him. You’re dealing with curses after all you dummy!’

She would have clapped her face between her hands if she still had them, but instead had to deal with her mounting frustration at her helplessness. Her helplessness and worsening loneliness.

‘Maybe I should try writing Cream again,’ Amy contemplated as she absently summoned a fortune card to take her to her feet once more. ‘I don’t know if she can even see the words I cast onto the paper but writing her helps me feel less lonely and I could use the company thinking about her brings.’

Her mind made up on her next course of action, Amy allowed her body to be pulled through the air by the fortune card that orbited her. Hearing a familiar voice though stopped her in her tracks.

“Come on boys!” The rambunctiously loud voice of Vector the Crocodile, head of the Chaotix Detective agency, ordered the ninja dressed purple chameleon and pilot hat wearing bee that accompanied him. “We can’t be getting distracted by the local specialties! We’re in the middle of a job.”

“Say’s the one stopping at every food stall in town,” the chameleon countered.

“Come on, Espio,” Vector attempted to plead and bargain as he shifted the blame. “Charmy’s been wanting to try the sweets and it’s not like I can say no to him.”

“Yeah!” Charmy chipped in excitedly. “The sweets here are really good and you’re missing out!”

“Are we not on a case?” Espio inquired with heavy exasperation.

‘The Chaotix?! Why are they here?!’

Surprised was putting it lightly at how shocked Amy was to see the detectives. They normally took on small jobs that did not see them far from their office in Central City, so appearing in a remote mountain village was anything but expected. It was to a degree that it was alarming, and Amy’s thoughts began to race.

‘They’re not looking for me, right? Would Cream or Vanilla have asked them to? No. Maybe. But I asked not to be helped. I’m supposed to be refining myself, and learning to use magic so I can find the keys to undo these locks will definitely be part of that. But if they find me and interrupt my journey. Well, no, they shouldn’t be able to, I can turn invisible via magic and even Espio shouldn’t be able to find me. But what if they are just passing through? It wouldn’t hurt to say hi, right? Augh! What are you thinking Amy! You don’t have a mouth or any arms to say hi with! And it’s not like they can see it’s you in here! You’d just confuse them if you went up to them like this! And what if they are here because Cream and Vanilla don’t think you can handle this! You’d be throwing in the towel just to say hi when you can’t! That’s one thing I can’t do! I won’t give up just because I want to actually be recognized by someone and not feel so lonely! Even if I’m really, really, lonely!’

The conflict in Amy’s head was revolving and it seemed unlikely that she could make up her mind on her own. Yet, despite the odds she did reach a decision.

‘Ooh~! What can it hurt! You can always just run away if things don’t work out!’

Her mind finally made up, Amy braced herself for anything and nodded her head with fierce determination.

‘Eh?’

As she looked up, Amy paused and took in the scene around her. The rain had long stopped, and the parting clouds revealed that the sun had moved to kiss the horizon on its way to its nightly slumber. There was no sign of the Chaotix, and the villagers were well on their way to preparing for the evening themselves.

‘Wait…,’ Amy weakly pleaded as her stomach rumbled at her, a consequence of the whole day passing and using magic to keep herself upright. ‘That’s not fair…’

Shaken by her indecision paralyzing her for an entire day, Amy tried to reach out to where she had seen Vector, Espio, and Charmy. Again, the Keyhole Rings at her sides appeared, serving as a cruel reminder of the curse that took her arms.

‘Stop it,’ Amy begged, but the Rings simply persisted until she gave up her attempt to reach to where none she knew stood. Then, they disappeared as surely as her arms and the memories of what it actually felt like to have them.

A tear fell to the ground from under Amy’s veil, followed by another and another, but no wailing to free her heart from the barbed wire pain that entangled it. The need to have her heart freed of its pain though gave her pause and Amy watched the red string that swirled in the air around her.

She knew better than to give in to that desire. Seeking Sonic was the worst possible thing she could do. If he saw her like this, it could result in the absolute worst outcome. The thoughts of the Koco whose love story she watched come to an end on the Starfall Islands and set her on her path of self-refinement flooded her mind as their reckless end very well threatened to be a foretelling of her and Sonic’s own if she did not refine herself. Yet the excessive sleep she needed to recover from using her magic, nor the dread of absorbing nutrients from her environment via magic, combined with that knowledge prevented Sonic the Hedgehog from standing across from the cursed mage in a clearing in some distant wood.

“What?” Sonic asked in surprise as the purple clad mage appeared after a flash of lightning. The ominous, almost threatening visage put Sonic on guard as the rain came thundering down.

“Is there something I can do for you?’ Sonic asked warily, rubbing the underside of his nose with his pointer finger as he felt a sneeze coming on that he was certain was warning him of danger rather than his hay fever. Especially in the violent downpour that was turning the ground quickly to mud underfoot.

Naturally, Amy could not respond, she could do nothing more than stare at Sonic as her heart absolutely screamed in anguish, paralyzing her where her orbiting fortune card kept her aloft. In the darkness brought on by the storm Sonic could not help but notice the magically alight card.

“Wait a minute,” Sonic muttered as he noticed the design on the back of the card and recognized it almost immediately.

The familiarity of the card drew Sonic to check for other familiar features. There was not much facing the nearly fully covered mage before him, but in the downpour the witch’s hat upon their crown had its brim forced down revealing the pink-furred hedgehog ears that escaped through the holes in its sides. Those ears in combination with the fortune card all but assured Sonic who was standing before him, but before he could seek clarification, he noted the red string that was pointing directly at his left pinky finger and that the mage before him had no arms. Faced with this additional information, the tone of his question changed dramatically.

“Amy?”

As her name left his lips, the curse on the veil that hid Amy’s eyes from the world failed before Sonic. Her distraught green eyes became readily visible to him, the force of the rain no longer being enough to obscure how violently she was trembling from head to toe. Only the tears that drenched her face were hidden still by the rain.

“Amy!” Sonic repeated and took a firm step forward. “What happened!”

In the next moment, too many things happened. Knowing what the cloak would do to Sonic if he approached her terrified Amy and she attempted to retreat from Sonic’s sudden approach. But her heart completely betrayed her and the reality of Sonic reaching out for her was enough to break even her absent-minded concentration and her fortune card vanished leaving her to fall backwards into the mud. Her loss of balance was all Sonic needed to forget the danger his nose was warning him about and he dashed forward to catch Amy, his world-famous sound surpassing speed leaving a boom that reverberated with the thunder. Amy could only look on in abject horror as she knew in the mud there would be no way for Sonic to stop himself from being pierced by the inevitable thorn that would greet him. Not wanting to see her own terror reflected in Sonic’s shocked eyes, she squeezed hers fast.

‘How could I?’ Amy accused herself, her heart feeling like it was being pulled in countless directions unable to resist the horror she befell upon the one she loved with every fiber of her being. ‘I knew this would happen if I kept acting without thinking! I’M SO SORRY SONIC!!’

She knew her apology would never reach Sonic, trapped inside her head as it was, and that he would never reach her. Yet, as she splashed down in the mud, she did not feel the impact or the weight from Sonic’s direction that she expected. Hearing his voice though, Amy forced her eyes open as she turned away so as not to see what she feared awaited her.

“Amy?” Sonic asked with surprise, the sword like purple thorn with the stary night at its tip just coming up short of his throat, seeking him from Amy’s chest. Amy could not fathom how Sonic had stopped, the sneeze that marked the peak of his danger sense going off and accomplishing the impossible going unheard over the rain and thunder. The confusion in Sonic’s emerald eyes though only deepening the regret, self-loathing, and fear in hers.

“Maybe instead of trying to impale me you could try telling me what this is all about?”

‘This isn’t what I wanted… this isn’t what was supposed to happen…!’

The story being told by Amy’s eyes failed to make anything clearer, instead muddying further the bizarreness of the situation for Sonic. “What is going through that head of yours Amy? Say something!”

The one demand she could not fulfill no matter how badly she wanted to. The growing concern and anger in Sonic’s eyes. The thought of him discovering her helplessness. The fact that she almost ended his life. That her heart betrayed her. It was suddenly far more than Amy could handle and a storm of fortune cards exploded around her launching her backwards and away from Sonic. Not waiting for Sonic to reorient himself and have the chance to stop her retreat, Amy dropped to the ground and another torrent of fortune cards appeared as she launched herself even higher into the air, twirling like an acrobat as she held her body straight as a pike. She refused to risk landing again and at least two dozen more fortune cards swirled into being around her, forming two rotating rings that kept her airborne and moving away from Sonic.

“Hey! You’re not getting away that easily without telling me what’s going on!”

Hearing Sonic yell angrily at her was like being hit by a towering ocean wave and being knocked out of her own body. The terror of what that could possibly mean erased any possibility of rational thought in consideration of Sonic’s actions. Seeing him ricocheting off tree branches to catch up to her only deepened her fear.

‘No! He’ll catch up in no time like this! Think Amy! There has to be a way to go fast enough to at least give you a chance to get away!’

Though too panicked to think rationally about Sonic’s reaction, Amy’s mind desperate from adrenaline and a need to travel as fast or faster than Sonic pulled her mind back to the Starfall Islands. It was where her journey to master her magic began, and in the need to go as quickly as possible to help Sonic she had developed another way to use her cards for movement.

Ceasing to use her magic to keep herself upright, Amy switched to relying on the strength she had in her torso as she summoned her Piko Piko Hammer and landed on it sidesaddle style. She did not ride the hammer to the ground though, her fortune cards raced to swirl like a wheel around her and her hammer rather than a ring orbiting her waist. The pause in the moment it took to align everything nearly gave Sonic a chance to risk the thorns once again emerging from the cloak, but then Amy was propelled forward in sound shattering burst of speed. Sonic could not begin his pursuit immediately as he first had to land and find his footing in the mud. Fortunately, the light given off by Amy’s cards pointed him in the right direction and he flew as fast as he could across the muddy ground. It was too slick though to match Amy’s magical retreat in speed and Sonic took to leaping from tree trunk to tree trunk with much greater success. To terrifying success from Amy’s perspective as her impromptu magical vehicle lacked any descent control and she was wildly drifting around trees as Sonic rapidly closed in on her. If not for the sudden cliff it would have been impossible for Amy to have gotten away.

“No~!” Sonic started to yell as he overshot Amy as she relinquished her magical chariot and started to fall. Twisting in the air to catch where she would land, Sonic was unprepared as the night sky suddenly blocked his vision. “Gah!”

It hardly took even an instant for Sonic to wrestle the witch’s hat free from his face and toss it away, but there was no sign of Amy as he scanned the forest below him. Looking back toward the hat out of desperation, Sonic was shocked to see that it too had already vanished. Shocked as he was though, he still took the time to focus on landing safely. But even from ground level there was no sign of Amy or the hat, Amy’s magic allowing for a trackless retreat.

Sonic was upset about his failure to catch Amy for several reasons, his pride as the world’s fastest hedgehog letting another hedgehog get away from him in a race among them. More important than his pride though, was his confusion and concern for Amy. In a last desperate bid to get her to explain, he screamed out her name into the storm.

He did not expect that months would pass, and that Amy of all people would become just another part of his life not to look back on. But he could not stop living his life for one regret. He could only move forward, no matter how much it hurt to have failed to have done anything. It was thus a shock when the Rabbit family contacted him desperate for his help. It was even more shocking when they were the ones who had the answers behind Amy’s actions on that stormy night so long ago now.

“That–,” Sonic began to make a remark about Amy as he pinched his brow with the hand of the same arm of which the elbow propped him up at the Rabbit family table, but a warning look from Vanilla kept his words clean, “–dummy.”

Even as clean as he kept his language, Sonic’s anger was apparent to Vanilla’s young daughter, and Cream fidgeted nervously as she risked asking the bristly hedgehog a question.

“Is it that bad Mr. Sonic?”

“Probably worse,” Sonic sighed as he glared at the collection of blank sheets of paper Cream held. They were letters written in magic that only the rabbit who was Amy’s best friend could read. To all others they were just blank sheets of paper, but this was not Sonic’s first time dealing with magic. Having faced the cursed, novice mage, Sonic could clearly sense Amy’s magic on the paper. He was angry with himself for having not figured it out that night and clicked his tongue.

“Even worse than how Amy describes the curses she has?” Cream asked, visibly shaken from the fresh imagery Amy’s writing invoked and Sonic’s anger. Sonic noticed how upset Cream was getting and offered her a smile.

“She definitely wasn’t doing good like you. Great job making it through those scary letters for me!”

“Of course!” Cream beamed at Sonic’s praise and the thumbs-up he flashed her. Vanilla was not leaning in the direction of agreement to praising Cream for nearly traumatizing herself reading the contents of the letters that Amy had been sending and how they described her experience with the curses placed upon her. Noticing the mother rabbit’s expression, Sonic pushed the discussion forward. He wanted to anyway as learning what he did since the Rabbit family asked him for help when the letters stopped coming for months made him want to once again find the pink hedgehog girl he used to not be able to shake.

“The problem is that Amy thinking these curses can help her get better at magic is too naïve. Speaking from personal experience, being cursed isn’t fun, and they only get worse the longer they hang around. I wouldn’t be in anywhere near as great of shape if not for a good friend who helped me back then.”

“Can this friend of yours help Amy, in light of you finding her first?” Vanilla asked hoping to remind Sonic why she had called him there.

“Probably,” Sonic answered Vanilla as he began scratching inside his ear with his pinky finger. He felt bad knowing he was going to have to extinguish the light that appeared in Cream’s eyes at the hope for her best friend, but he still pulled his finger free of his ear and blew on it. “Unfortunately, I can’t just get in touch with her. Amy is probably going to try to keep avoiding me too. She probably can’t shake the image of that one Koco couple she tried to help back on the Starfall Islands. She already compared one of them to herself, and she’s probably plugged me into the role of the other. She doesn’t want us to go through the same thing and wants to refine herself to do it. It’s too much for her though. These curses aren’t just hiding her from the world, they’re cutting off everything she is all so she can focus on learning magic. Even being Amy and her being able to accomplish those things only she can…”

“Then you’ll find her and help her, right Mr. Sonic!” Cream shouted, desperate to hear good news about Amy. Sonic smiled to her again and placed a hand on her head as he stood up.

“You bet,” Sonic offered a reassuring thumbs up yet again. “Amy owes me a race too, so I have to find her and prove her getting away was a stroke of pure luck.”

Pure luck was going to be something that Sonic needed if he were even to get a lead. Since his encounter no one had even seen the purple clad mage. The idea that on that night she had retreated from one polar hemisphere to the other to get away from him was unfathomable. That the amount of magic she used to accomplish the hours upon hours long feat on top of having escaped from him in the first place left her in a state of hibernation since would have been even more shocking. Yet, to Amy who had not realized how far she had traveled and how long she had slept, the season seemed the same and as far as she could tell she had simply slept a night and not for months. The absolute absence of life in the forest below the mountain cave she exited left her feeling extremely guilty.

‘I guess I was hungry, and nothing would stay where it was to become fuel for a mage.’ Summoning her trusty hammer, Amy sat on the head and began her morning routine of rubbing her thighs together. The task was performed in absent-minded habit as her thoughts were elsewhere.

‘I really messed up,’ Amy thought as she sighed, though the long sleep had left her emotions far less volatile. ‘I bet Sonic thinks I hate him after that.’

Looking at the red string that still twirled around her, Amy was not so sure. “Well, at least we still share a destiny even if he does. I wonder if an apology will be enough to at least make Sonic forget about me instead of hating me.’

Tears fell from Amy’s eyes, and she tilted her head back so they would not become like raindrops upon the cloak that bound her. The gray sky above threatened to accomplish that outcome if she failed regardless, and Amy’s brow furrowed as though she were smiling wryly.

‘Meanie,’ she thought to herself before turning her attention back to herself. ‘Well, I have to apologize no matter what. Sonic deserves to know what happened, even if that’s the end of our destiny. Even if it means he’ll never be the key to my heart so I can get free. It’s not like I remember my arms or voice anymore anyway. I doubt even unlocking the Keyhole Rings where my arms would be would bring them back. Where would they even go? They’d be crushed and that’d be worse than not having them.’

She wanted to laugh and cry both at the idea, but without her mouth or voice, she could only shed more tears as the first raindrops began to fall. Not wanting just to cry, Amy shifted her thoughts and looked down at the Keyhole Rings on her feet.

“I wonder, if that’s the case, then would undoing any of these restore any of my control over my body… It doesn’t make sense that it would. Wouldn’t it make more sense that instead I’d be able to use spells that require exerting more of my magic against my body? Like wouldn’t all of that movement last night have been easier if my ability to move, using my feet, wasn’t restricted. In other words, I need to get stronger too.’

Testing herself, Amy chose her right foot and began to try and force her magic into the Keyhole Ring. It easily resisted her attempts, seeming to grow more resistant the more magic she threw at it. She should have been forced to withdraw, but the hedgehog girl was stubborn, and Amy pushed herself to the point of exhaustion. As her magic waned, it became small enough to slip inside the Keyhole Ring.

‘EH~!’

Surprised and exhausted as she was, Amy did not want to waste the opportunity and traced around inside the keyhole attempting to fill its shape with her magic. It was like exploring a puzzle laden dungeon and Amy concentrated fiercely to see the complex structure filled. And then, to her surprise Amy accomplished it and had the shape of the key that would unlock the Keyhole Ring. But the magic was wrong, and it would not turn.

‘Phooey,’ Amy huffed as her efforts seemed to be for naught. Yet she still had the key shape and let it float up before her eyes. ‘Well, it’s the right shape, so maybe I can use it to find the actual key. If it’s a different type of magic but the same shape I just have to pick it out from the rest of the magic that fills the world. Hmm… I think I’ve passed a few places where magic seems to pool from all sorts of different sources. If I take this there maybe I can find the matching shape and trace it back from there.

‘Look at that Amy! You have a plan for the first time since you got turned into this. Right, then being able to apologize to Sonic should no longer be just a silly desire. I’ll just work my way up through each lock since I’ll need to be able to comprehend moving through space that disappears to unlock the ones at my sides. With those undone maybe I’ll have the magical dexterity to hold this silly hat down so I can trace its Keyhole Rings too! But I need to make sure I stay focused first and don’t let my heart steer me off course without thinking about it first.’

A fortune card answering her summons and letting Amy stand up as her hammer vanished, the cursed mage floated over to a nearby Ring spinning on its axis in the air.

‘Perfect!’

Having an idea of what she wanted to do thanks to tracing out the shape of the right foot Keyhole Ring, Amy grabbed the Ring with her magic and flooded the space it occupied, tracing out a complex enclosure until suddenly the Ring disappeared only to reappear closing itself into the same space as the Keyhole Ring on her chest and becoming one itself. It did not cut off the red string, which was exactly what Amy wanted, and a golden key with a Keyhole Ring as its tab floated in the air before her.

‘There! With that I won’t be able to just act on my emotions without getting paralyzed. I’ll have to think it through and come up with the right spell to free myself. And it’ll have to be rooted in an actual plan that won’t let me chase after Sonic until I’ve conquered the other six locks.

‘…

‘It’s kind of useless if I just have the key though.’

For once proving it actually had some reasonable use, the witch’s hat upon Amy’s head leapt off and gulped up the key, erasing all trace of it. Amy could easily sense it within the hat, but that did not stop the incredulous look that took over her face.

‘NO WAY!! All this time you’ve been nothing but useless and now you do something helpful! Just wait until I unlock your Keyhole Rings! Then you’ll answer to me, and I’ll get all of the head magic you’re likely locking up too!

‘Wait! What about the letters I’ve been writing to Cream? Don’t tell me the magic I’ve been using isn’t actually strong enough for her to read them! If this is your fault!

‘Oh~, never mind,’ Amy exhaled sharply through her nose as she calmed herself down. ‘It’s not like I’m ever getting out of this, so I’ll just apologize to Cream when I can find a way to talk to her without a mouth. Until then, since you seem to be able to hear me, that means you get to be my friend.’

Ducking under the floating hat, Amy straightened up and forced it back onto her head. With a nod she looked off towards the horizon as the rain began to pick up.

‘No complaints either, you got it. We’re stuck with each other because there is no way Sonic will let me use him to unlock the last lock after that awful meeting. So, no more complaints about my mouth and arms from me either. I’m already used to being without them, I just have to find a way to be happy like this too.

‘Maybe after I finally apologize to Sonic, I’ll take up traveling magic research and learn everything I can about magic. Traveling just to get better at using it is fun enough, so why not?’

Thinking about the future well beyond her current point, and even her next destined meeting with Sonic, Amy set off on the next leg of her adventure to undo the Keyhole Rings and free herself, planning to replace them with her own so as to even make her cursed form her own under her own power. It was a hopeful dream full of impossible optimism. But that was Amy Rose, and she never gave up on impossible dreams. As long as she did not hurt anyone that was. Hence why she was able to ignore the twitching of the far end of what she could see of the red string around her as it traced Sonic’s search for her, all the while, the rain coming to an end and the sun coming out.

Yet such adventures were boring and lonely themselves, and Amy’s loneliness had already compromised others already. As she had stopped writing Cream, finding ways to stem off her loneliness grew more important, and she found herself experimenting with magic while letting her playful nature keep her from being too dour about it.

~Hark ye who have stumbled upon this tomb and know that you have exposed yourself to the personal account of the life of Sorcerer Lock, the Mage of Cards…

~Pft–~ I’m sorry, that’s too much. It’s not wrong, but not entirely right, I’m going to start over.

~If you’re reading this, you are indeed reading the open diary of Lock the Mage. Except Lock isn’t really my name. It’s what people have started calling me though as my reputation has spread, and it naturally has to do with the seven Keyhole Rings that adorn or otherwise float around me. The whole Mage of Cards bit comes about because I use my fortune cards as a conduit for my magic. The thing is though, right now I’m no sorcerer or anything so grand. I’m just a cursed novice who wanted to get better at magic to help refine myself, and well, here I am on a grand adventure to do just that and lift the curses on me.

~I haven’t figured out what all of the curses are, but I have determined the best order to go about it.

~On each of my stary night slipper clad feet with matching tights are one Keyhole Ring each. The curses on these pretty much keep me from using my legs from my knees down. Undoing those Keyhole Rings, I believe will allow me to access more diverse movement magic than what I can manage with my fortune cards alone. Should I undo both I’m hoping to be able to traverse locations that aren’t technically there. That sounds weird, so let me move on to…

~The large Keyhole Rings floating at my sides about as far out as my wrists would be if I still had arms. I’ll get to that, but without the ability to travel places that aren’t there, I can’t project my magic in to map out the keyholes and track down the magic that shares the same shape. When I do though, the hope is to be able to have access to magic that is at least as good as having hands again, or way better. I’ll need it too if I’m going to deal with the next two.

~On my head are two more Keyhole Rings. Despite wearing a flat cap with a veil that no one but me can see through and big earring placed purple gems, both Keyhole Rings on my head are actually on a witch’s hat that normally sits up there too. The problem is that it’s alive and moves about freely. Without being able to hold it down I can’t map out either of those either. When I do, I’m sure I’ll be able to control it and put an end to the curses from it. I’m sure it’s messing with my head and also secretly sharing magic knowledge with me to help me along, but the first part is a problem. I can’t trust myself to go see my friends, even though all of this doesn’t mean anything if I don’t solve it myself. I can’t talk to them either and can’t be sure if even this diary will ever be readable by anyone thanks to it. But I’m so lonely not being able to have anyone see me in this get up that I’m writing it anyway and if you’re reading it, know you’re as much my companion as this awful hat! And I enjoy fortune telling, so I have no doubt someone will read this someday!

~Ahem. Moving on, the other reason I need control of the hat isn’t just for access to proper communication knowledge, but to also get back the key for the Keyhole Ring I made and cursed myself with. You see, the last Keyhole Ring of the curse from the purple cloak with the stary night pattern at its end and fused itself to me as the world’s tightest mouth and arm stealing mermaid dress doesn’t have a normal key. It rests on my chest and the red string of fate trails out of it and around me. On the other end is none other than who I love with every fiber of my being. Sonic the Hedgehog. He’s the last key, but without lifting the other curses, seeing him didn’t end well. I don’t have real person to person communication magic, I don’t have my mouth, and I don’t have any arms. All I could do was float there staring helplessly at him until he almost got himself impaled on the thorns that grow out of the cloak if anyone tries to reach out for me or gets too close. That meeting was a disaster, and I’m sure after successfully running away that the only fate left between Sonic and me has nothing to do with us being destined lovers anymore. I don’t even think we are anymore after that meeting. But before letting Sonic catch up with me or seeking him out again, I’m going to become the best mage I can and make these curses my own. Afterall, if Sonic and I are no longer destined lovers, then he can’t be the key to my heart to finally undo the last lock. I’m stuck in this armless, mouthless, cloak sealed form forever. But I have to at least apologize to Sonic before dedicating the rest of my life to becoming a great mage worthy of the name Sorcerer Lock, the Mage of Cards.

~Oh, that reminds me. It’s part of why I’m writing this. It’s not just to stave off the suffocating loneliness, but so I don’t forget. Like I said at the beginning, Lock isn’t my actual name. But all anyone sees is this get up which is so not my style. They don’t see me in it, and since my ability to communicate is pretty much gone, it’s what people have started calling me. But if you’re reading this then please, don’t call me Lock. My name is Amy Rose, so please call me Amy. I don’t want to forget my name too. I’ve already forgotten what it feels like to talk or to use my also stolen voice. I don’t even remember what it’s like having a mouth even though my face is full under the collar of the cloak like I should still have one. It’s not like my arms which I’ve also totally forgotten how to use or what it was like having any. It’s frightening that I have too because the Keyhole Rings at my side only show up if I’m using my cards when they used to always be there before just showing up when I tried to imagine using my arms. Imagining using arms isn’t the same and they don’t respond. I’m honestly scared even using my cards won’t be enough one day, so I need to get them mapped before they disappear forever. It’s not like I can give up on them like my memories of walking and using my legs. Without them I can never undo the Keyhole Rings on the hat and that means that the curse I put on me to keep me from pursuing Sonic can’t be undone either. I wouldn’t be able to apologize then and the rest of my life would be weighed down by that one regret. I can’t do that!

~Anyway, that’s where this record of my travels begins. And you’ll be joining me today as I arrive at a rather cute village isolated here in the mountains.

~Why am I here? Because even though I’ve learned that magic exists all throughout nature, spells were crafted by people, so that means curses too. I have to find a place where magic and spells pool so I can hopefully find a magic match to the shape of the one Keyhole I have mapped out. And with that, let’s go~♥~

Depending on the mountain range, one can find idyllic valleys even in the heart of seemingly perpetual blizzards. It was such a forested location that Amy found herself descending into, her brow furrowing as she noticed a tunnel allowing vehicular traffic into the hamlet hidden in the cozy hidden forest. She did not stay frustrated for long however as vehicular traffic meant modern amenities and she gleefully allowed herself to levitate into town. The sight of a ninety-centimeter-tall armless figure in a purple mermaid dress and witch’s hat with a fortune card orbiting about them floating into town easily attracted attention and it was soon known that the mage had arrived in the small community. It hardly mattered to Amy however, at least until she chose a local coffee shop to delight herself in.

“The Mage of Cards? Here?” A lady waiting in line for service at the counter asked, prompting Amy to turn invisible.

“That’s what I heard,” another lady replied. “Lock was seen here of all places. I can only imagine the trouble she’ll bring.”

~If you’re feeling bad about the response to me, it’s fine. It happens all the time. I mean, for as beautiful as this outfit looks, no one can see who’s wearing it so it’s natural to be suspicious. That, and it’s no mystery that Sonic is looking for me. I’m not sure why since it’s been months since that fateful night. Maybe Cream asked him to since I haven’t seen her since before I set out on my little trip of self-refinement. I had been writing her, but when it occurred to me that the curses on the hat probably made my letters unreadable, I stopped. Sending her blank pieces of paper because I can’t use a pen and she can’t read magic inscribed letters just seems silly. Did those envelops I dropped off even go anywhere? Either way, Sonic is looking for me, and people know. Because he isn’t sharing why beyond unfinished business in the few interview clips I’ve seen, people think I’m his enemy. It’s heartbreaking enough anytime I see him on TV or hear his voice, but thinking I might be someone Sonic sees as an enemy now…

~No! I can’t feel sorry for myself. I just need to stay focused on these curses. That and cheering myself up a little.~

The idea of trouble being brought was said in a broad sense by the lady and she was ill prepared for Amy to suddenly appear out of thin air as she looked back at the other lady she was speaking with. If Amy had her voice still, she would have laughed at the look of shocked horror on the woman’s face. Her amusement quickly turned to guilt however when both women started profusely apologizing to her. She could hardly do anything in response and did not know peace until she ordered an herbal tea by pointing at the menu with another summoned fortune care and sat outside to wait for it.

~You’re probably wondering how I’m going to eat without a mouth, and I can assure not with my nose. I’m going to use magic to extract what I need from it to keep myself going. Eating this way is one of the first things I had to learn when I was first cursed. I honestly thought I was going to die if I didn’t figure it out, and I can take from anything I want really. I like herbal tea though as herbs are very rich in magic and helps keep my magic from draining out too fast. If I use too much, I get so sleepy. I can actually sleep for months at a time it turns out if I’m not careful. When that happens, I can’t really stop myself from absorbing from everything around me just to stay alive. Which is kind of a dreadful state to be in because it means even if I wanted to waste away after what I did to Sonic my magic wouldn’t let me. It feels like an extra curse on top of all the rest. I can’t even give it away; I’ve tried but the dumb hat has stopped me. I’m trying to be friends with it, but it’s always causing me so much trouble. I swear it’s doing it on purpose. But I think an example would better help demonstrate what I mean.~

After extracting everything she could from the herbal tea and causing it to dissipate into nothing, Amy set about town in search of a demonstration of her intentions. Her search was for more than a demonstration however and she kept her magic senses on high as she drifted about town ducking into and out of alleys. Her efforts paid off eventually as she found the back door of a bakery where the quickly staling early morning, short-lived goods were being disposed of.

“Get out of there you wretch!” the employee disposing of the wasted foodstuffs yelled at a man in tattered rags who was waist deep in the trash bin in the alley. It put him in perfect position to be kicked in the side and sent rolling with the trash can. “Don’t make me call the cops!”

~It’s awful seeing how people will hurt each other when they can help each other. Maybe those baked goods are stale now, they sure smell it, but this poor man is hungry and hasn’t given up on life yet. That it’s more important to that person to throw out food that could help someone then helping them out makes me want to scream some sense into them. All I can do as I am right now though is try to help.~

From where she had again cast her invisibility spell on herself, Amy looked down the alley to where the beggar was skulking away as the bakery employee scowled after them while being sure to put a lock on the trash.

~Disgraceful.~

Her mind made up, Amy reached into herself and took hold of her own life force before turning her eyes back in the vagrant’s direction. Exactly as she expected, the hat that normally adorned her head was floating in front of her to block her line of sight to the man.

~And this is what always happens when I try. This silly hat proves itself helpful and won’t let me hurt myself, not even to help someone else. But there are other ways I can help as I’ve learned. Those baked goods may be under lock and key until the trash collectors come for them, but a simple thing like that can’t stop my magic. I’ll just extract all of the nutrients from every bit of food in there and pass it on to this poor man. I’d like to do more, but…~

Though her eyes were downcast, they still smiled as Amy successfully circumvented the hat and managed to get the vagrant a full meal.

~Sorry you didn’t get to enjoy the taste; I know just how you feel. But with a full belly you should be able to find the strength to try and improve things for yourself. Best of luck!~

The demonstration for whoever might read the open diary she magically inscribed into every reasonable surface she passed while traveling over, Amy resumed her search of town for whatever else there was she had traveled there for through the frozen mountains beyond. But she soon tired and took a seat on a bench to allow her own magic to recharge. She couldn’t help but feel that the cloak that bound her did the same as she caught a slender thorn grow from it to impale a mosquito that dared drift too near. She sighed heavily through her nose at her powerlessness, her earlier act of kindness doing little to help her feel assured of her growth as a mage. Another test soon presented itself though as an explosion rocked the edge of the town.

~What was that!~

Not realizing she was still recording her open diary, Amy summoned up several of her fortune cards, the cards pulling her back to a standing levitation. As they settled into orbit around her, she rushed off after the explosion as people either stood stunned or fled. The tendency of some people to scream in their panic however told Amy immediately what she was getting into.

“It’s Eggman! Run for your lives!”

~Eggman? Here? No, it’s probably just a stray robot. He wouldn’t bother with a place like this unless it had something that he wanted. As much as he torments gods too, I’m sure he has no way to interact with magic.~

Rounding a corner and letting her cards disperse so she could slow down, Amy set about determining what she was up against. While not the nefarious Doctor Eggman himself, what appeared was too much trouble for a town far enough removed from most to not have any Wispon users or even Wisps present to help. Waving an oversized drill of a right hand while tossing bombs with a left hand that seemed to create giant bombs that exploded into a rain of smaller bombs, the lumbering Eggman shaped mech stared down the edge of town with a glowing smile.

~Is that based on an Egg Hammer?~

The robot Amy compared the one she faced to was towering machine that shared a similar heavily armored build but typically carried a two-handed hammer. In her own days of wielding a toy hammer as her weapon of choice, she could boast about having beaten many of them at their own hammer swinging game. With no arms to swing her hammer and next to no control of her body physically, such feats were beyond the novice mage. Yet that did not seem to matter.

Not noticing Amy’s arrival, the Egg Driller opened up its left palm and presented a new bomb for the terrified townsfolk. Tossing it up into the air, it smiled brightly as the bomb exploded into a shiny set of smaller bombs ready to rain down destruction and chaos. Such did not happen however as Amy glided across the ground and positioned herself between the town and the machine, most of the fortune cards that had been orbiting her finding their way skyward and decimating the rain of bombs. That action alone earned the mage the full attention of the robot that she glared down as she sent more fortune cards to push and drag people to safety. Her efforts seemed futile however as the crowd shifted from panic to curiosity at the sight of an unexpected hero. Amy had no time to worry however as she had to focus on moving herself as the Egg Driller lunged at her with its namesake right arm. Summoning more of her fortune cards to get her moving, Amy deftly dodged the attack, but was forced to make a spiraling shield of cards to catch the follow up backhand. As the robot jumped away it launched several missiles from its backpack unit which spiraled wildly after Amy. The rocket powered speed of the missiles forced Amy to retreat rather than destroy them allowing several to crash into the ground and send debris flying with. Not risking more destruction, she took a short hop and slammed down into the ground, her cards catching her. Exploding outward away from her, the recoil sent her spiraling like a pike well into the air. This provided the room necessary for further missiles to curve up after her only to get sliced in half by a magic imbued fortune card each.

Needing to keep the Egg Driller’s attention away from the ground, Amy cast forth enough fortune cards to form two orbiting rings around her and slowing her descent to a crawl. As she slowly descended, she matched eyes with the towering robot and the next exchange began.

Dropping to a knee, the Egg Driller fired off another salvo of missiles at Amy as it summoned another giant bomb to hand. Rolling the bomb to take up where Amy could next stomp down, it set its arm to use and bored once again into the ground. This left Amy with no target and a need to dodge a spiraling salvo of explosive projectiles, a situation which became an opportunity to dance. Letting her orbiting cards pull her about through the air, Amy summoned several more to intercept the missiles while making sure to also cut the fuse of the giant bomb below her. Trapped within the greater bomb, the smaller ones within still went off and Amy braced herself for her opponent to send it flying into the air after her as it was transformed into a rather volatile spiked ball.

Ready as Amy was, it was no surprise when the deformed bomb at last jetted into the air for her, the damage on the underside allowing the internal explosions to escape and fuel it like a rocket. Amy did not back down however and cast out two fortune cards spinning like a saw blade of growing diameter to split the bomb in half. Cut as it was, the internal explosions blasted the two halves harmlessly into the mountains that surrounded the town. It was an impressive and flashy display that nearly blinded Amy to her opponent’s spectacular achievement of reaching her elevation. It was not an achievement managed by the Egg Driller under its own power though.

~EH~~~~~!!!!! Why is a guardian statue here! And why is it so big!~

The Egg Driller became a thing of all of no interest to Amy as it was crushed mercilessly in the mouth of a stone dragon, it’s drill falling to the ground below, the explosions from its remaining bombs and missiles seeming to have all of no effect on the stone beast.

~Eh-hehehehe… Right! Let’s make this a lesson about guardian statues and magic beasts. Since I’ve been looking for places where magic pools and hopefully where spells pool as well, I’ve fought quite a few. Most magical beasts aren’t too bad as I can just overpower them with an assault of magic, but guardian statues are a very different problem.~

Donning a steely look in her eyes, Amy summoned even more cards and sent them out to strike the dragon statue that closed in on her. Unlike with the bombs she had been attacking before, her cards did not even scratch the dragon, instead seeming to find resistance against an unseen barrier. Her attack proving useless, Amy was fully exposed to the jaws of the statue as they clamped down fast on her.

~The problem with guardian statues, you see, is they have magic resistance, and my magic isn’t powerful enough to penetrate it. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t other ways to beat them.~

Despite the difference in magic power between Amy’s offensive casting and the defenses of her new opponent, the magic Amy used to place cards stopping every tooth of the statue proved sufficient to keep her from becoming its second meal. Summoning more cards, she retreated backwards out of its mouth and summoned the rest of her cards back to her to increase her speed, but the statue was not caught off guard by the fierce shutting of its jaws and turned over catching Amy full on in a powerful tail whip. The blow sent the purple clad hedgehog careening into the ground and through the forest with enough force to cause a massive dust cloud to billow up. The townsfolk could only watch in terror as the stone beast roared triumphantly, afraid they would be next. But they possessed no magic and did not interest the beast. Instead, it was magic activity in the forest that drew the beast’s attention. Descending in hot pursuit of Amy, the guardian statue only did not crash into the ground by spreading its wings at the last possible second. The motion seemed to have saved it as several fortune cards flew under it, clearly missing their mark. Not spotting Amy, the dragon landed to better see through the trees, uprooting several with its weight and revealing that the floor of the forest had become a pit of dust. Immediately the massive statue sank, the friction between stone and dust preventing even its powerful wingbeats from lifting it. What it did achieve however was a parting of the trees to reveal the purple clad Mage of Cards staring it down with green glowing eyes as her fortune cards danced mercilessly through the ground deepening the pit of dust.

~You see, even with magic there are physical limitations that have to be considered. I’ve taken worse hits from Knuckles when playing around, so I’m fine after a hit like that, mostly, but this thing is too heavy to get back out and once I pull my cards out of the ground, it’ll set instantly trapping it in the ground.~

The roar that erupted from the guardian statue was not one of defeat, and it opened its mouth wide to reveal a growing light between its jaws. Amy held her ground without fear however as she was prepared, a fact the statue came to realize as the Egg Driller’s drill filled the space above its head. It tried to twist out of the way, but the drill was brought down hard, a storm of fortune cards spiraling around it to increase its speed well beyond the limits of the robot that once wielded it.

~The tricky part with guardian statues is that their magical defenses allow them to shrug off most non magical attacks, and most magical attacks don’t work either. So, the best solution is to combine the two and overload its defenses.~

Spiraling around the drill as Amy’s fortune cards were, they served as a forward drill to meet the magic resistance of the dragon. As they peeled away the drill lowered and lowered until card and drill both bore relentlessly against the beast. All the while, Amy watched on with cold, glowing eyes as the beast released another roar. This one would prove to be its last as the stone of its head cracked and splintered for only a moment before the drill shattered it into a cloud of dust, the rest of its body following suit and leaving Amy standing alone in the forest. She was not left alone for long and was soon joined by a cheering crowd of villagers whose lives she saved from two unexpected threats that day.

~I wouldn’t say this is how my adventures have been going normally. I mean, I don’t usually have people telling me how cool I am after a fight, or how intimidating and frightening I look when staring down an opponent. I mean, I guess I do look cool. and considering my figure is really shown off by this get up I bet I look a lot more mature than I feel. Being called scary though kind of hurts. I try so hard to be cute, but it really is impossible like this. I bet Rouge could pull this off way better than me. Maybe I’ll ask her for some pointers when I finally get that far along. For now, though, I need to check out the magic ruins the guardian was protecting and see if I can’t find any clues or helpful knowledge. It’d be nice to find another mage, but I feel like if there are any this cloak is a sure sign to avoid me. Who knows though, maybe when I find the first key that will change. I hope you’ll be excited when you find my next diary entry. It’s been fun talking, but for now, I need to do secret stuff. If you’re a mage too, you’ll have to do your own research. Best of luck~♥~

“I’m not a mage, and the research I have to do is figuring out where you went next,” Sonic sighed as he sat on the edge of the ruin revealing chasm that the guardian statue had emerged from. “How did you not pass out after that when just running from me had you out for months?”

“Lock left no notes on that did she?” an old man asked Sonic as he walked up with his hands clasped behind his back. He eyed the ring on Sonic’s left ring finger, oblivious to it being constructed by burning the letters sent to Cream and having the ashes sealed within the metal. He was further without knowledge of how wearing it where he did allowed Sonic to see the end of the red string that swirled around Lock tied around his left pinky. All the old man knew was that the Ring allowed Sonic to read Lock’s notes since he traveled around the small hamlet touching it to various places where the Mage of Cards had passed through.

“I’d appreciate a hint at least,” Sonic admitted his ignorance to Amy simply absorbing the released magic of her opponent to keep herself going.

“Ho, ho, ho,” the old man laughed. “When Lock arrived, we feared her you know. Your search for her and her never waiting to meet you or speaking for herself and all. But after she saved us, we realized she must have had a good reason to avoid you. Whatever it may be, we all agreed not to betray her kindness and help you should you come through. I hope you can forgive us our kindness.”

“Nothing to be done about it,” Sonic shrugged as he stood up and dusted himself off. “If she wants to lead me on an adventure, I’ll enjoy it until she slips up and I finally catch her. She can’t outrun me forever, I’m Sonic the Hedgehog after all.”

“Ho, ho, ho! Best of luck then. I just hope your unfinished business isn’t to bring her any harm.”

“Heh,” Sonic smirked. “Trust me, I’d never hurt her by choice. Even reading about her fears about her hat I can't believe she's managed to convince herself that I hate her.”

Sonic's last sentence went unheard as he was gone in a blink before saying it, speeding off hoping to stumble upon another of Amy’s diaries. As he ran, he spied a quick glance to his left hand. Whether he was checking the red string tied around his pinky and tracing into empty air and Amy at some distance or contemplating the placement of the ring he crafted with Tails aid to help him on his quest could not be said. Regardless, he allowed himself a smirk and accelerated further. The next chapter of Lock’s journal was out there somewhere waiting to be read and to take him one step closer to the errant hedgehog girl who used to chase him. The adventure was far from over for either of them.

The worsening loneliness of Lock only assured that most of the mage’s journal entries were frivolous more than they were helpful. They covered anything and everything from how she used magic to stay clean and felt like the laundry when wet to remarking on the influence of magic and spells on wildlife and geography. Not all of them were without value, and it was one that would lead more into her collecting of fortune cards that proved most valuable.

“Really, I can hardly thank you enough Lock,” a local trader clapped his hands together as his goods carrying pickup truck did not share the same fate as the scattered remnants of Eggman’s robots on the rocky mountain road he traversed. “Are you sure this is really all you want? It’s a trivial trinket I picked up because I liked the art. It doesn’t hold any value and if you just took on regular bodyguard work like this you could surely earn a fortune.

“No?” the trader asked as Lock shook her head. Looking back over his shoulder he could see a town down the road and smiled disappointedly. “Well, I can make it the rest of way myself, so I suppose it’s only fair I give this to you now.

“Take care Lock! May your journeys prove more lucrative than this one!”

~I feel so bad not being able to tell him how valuable this little trinket actually is.

~Oh, right! It’s Lock again! What’s that? Wasn’t I using another name? Hee-hee… About that, it’s kind of embarrassing. I started writing this diary so I wouldn’t forget and to stave off my loneliness, but well, I went and forgot anyway. So, if you know my actual name, please use it. I’m sure it’s better than Lock.

~Anyway, on more important matters, I finally have a lead to the first key! Some context will help though. Um, as much as I like learning about magic, I have to take my mind off of it from time to time so I can clear my head to think better. So, I’ve taken to collecting fortune cards during my travels. Not just any fortune cards as I already have a full deck, but False Arcana.

~False Arcana are kind of hard to explain, but in short, they are fortune cards that are not part of any of the existing suits. They don’t actually belong and are thus false. As a practitioner of cartomancy beyond the use of just fortune cards, I can mix them into my deck and make readings based on their inherent meanings. Adding them to my deck has also expanded my magical ability so collecting them is especially helpful. And no worries about the backs not matching my deck, as binding them to my magic by making Keyhole Rings and conquering the dungeons my mind explores when doing so fully changes them to match. It’s the Meaningless False Arcana that are much more troublesome after all.

~Unlike regular False Arcana, Meaningless False Arcana don’t even have inherent meaning of their own. They’re literally just art pieces in the fashion of fortune cards. They’re effectively useless, but some are weird and I can sense magic in them. Well, spells more accurately. And that’s what brings us back to how much this person I escorted helped me out. I probably wouldn’t have even met him, but the little trinket he had was a Meaningless False Arcana that I can sense a spell from that matches the key shape I traced out for the Keyhole Ring on my left foot! Hold on a moment while I try to bind it to my magic!

­~…

~…

~… AUGH~~~~!!!!! I can’t do it! The dungeon doesn’t make any sense!~

Perhaps to the mercy of the future reader of Lock’s diary, she stopped writing as her frustration reached a head and she glared at the card she had acquired. The art it held was that of a town in some verdant land and the name of the card was simply “Valsoth.”

With a heavy sigh through her nose, Lock gave up on the card for the moment and turned her attention away from it. ‘Wait a minute… NO WAY!!’

Lock’s excitement could only be contained by her voiceless, mouthlessness as her senses detected the same magic on the card in the air. Looking around with fevered excitement as at last she found a lead to one of the Keyhole Rings of the curses and cloak that bound her, Lock summoned fortune card after fortune card absentmindedly to allow her to jump in joy as she found a hidden path deeper into the rocky mountains she currently traveled. As she calmed herself down, she took several of them and let them swirl around her until they forced her into a ball form, and she rolled down through the hidden path. It hardly seemed a sight worth noting, a hedgehog curling into a ball, but the sight of the witch’s hat that accompanied her bouncing along atop Lock’s curled form was a difficult to ignore curiosity.

~Asides from collecting cards and growing my magic, I’ve also been working on what physical abilities of mine I can. With Sonic the Hedgehog of all people chasing me, I need to be able to. As he uses his ability to curl into a ball to manipulate his speed and attack, I’ve been training to do the same. I’m definitely better at using magic to attack, but traveling by rolling and steering with my magic is faster and less magic consuming than levitating. It feels humiliating though like this so I try not to do it where people can see me. I also have to be careful when I stumble upon magic beasts.

~Like magic guardians, magic beasts are typically resistant to most physical attacks. While rolling is a good way to get away from them, it’s better to fight and eradicate them. While magic beasts are living things, most of the time, they aren’t natural and simply bring destruction to everything if left alone. I worry sometimes that being able to get rid of them has made me less sensitive to the value of life, even if destroying them is to protect life that isn’t only destructive. ‘Oh! What’s that!’

Distracted as she was by the magic beasts that lined the path she followed through the mountains as well as her Rolling Spin Attack training, Lock had not been paying attention to where she had been going. Several stone bridges had passed under her and many a matching staircase had brought her to a shallow stretch of river. Across from the bank where she levitated a sheer cliff was draped in many waterfalls, a megalithic structure carving a chasm into it.

Even if Lock had not sensed the trail of the spell for the key to the Keyhole Ring on her right foot, her curiosity would have drawn her to levitate across the water. The structure was simple, but the rocks were carved into tiers of stone creating a layered effect creating defined depth. It was as though she was floating into a columned entryway where no columns had been carved at all.

‘W~O~W!!’

The towering chasm did at last come to an end however, marked by a staircase leading up into a narrow slit in the artificial cavern wall. Making it her destination, Lock was surprised when she came across rich tapestries hanging in decoration and a stone wall that split apart as automatic doors.

“Oh?” A voice spoke from the side in what could best described as a lobby made in a megalithic structure. Turning to see who spoke, Lock laid her eyes on an aged star-nosed mole in star patterned robes. “It’s been some time since a guest arrived following a spell. I suppose it is only natural for you, a Student of Curses, however.

‘EH~!! Is this a magic school?’

“Seeing the look on your face and sensing the curses that instruct you in the ways of magic, I suppose it’s best I explain. But not here.”

Coming out from behind the stone desk he sat at, the star-nosed mole led Lock to a hidden stone door in a side wall, blatantly far removed from the wall opposite where she arrived and likely leading to the main structure. Though she looked back curiously at what lay beyond that wall, she could not ignore that she had just met someone who understood her situation, and likely far better than she herself did. Putting aside her curiosity, she followed the mole beyond the door and into the torchlit darkness beyond. As the stone door closed behind them, and they began to descend a staircase with several landings likely also holding hidden doors, the mole began his exposition.

“Forgive my presumptions, but based on your appearance and the Keyhole Rings on your person, I am not wrong in believing that you are Lock, the Mage of Cards?”

Lock was confused for a moment by the mole’s phrasing, and he moved to clarify the intent of his inquiry. “You are Lock, the Mage of Cards, correct?”

Clearly understanding, Lock nodded her confirmation of her identity.

“Ah, then it is good that I led you this way and not into the main library. You have many destinies yet tied to you young mage. It would have been detrimental to those who yet rely on you if I had inadvertently brought an end to your instructors.”

‘What?’ Lock asked, though unheard, as she came to a stop.

“Are you surprised Lock?” the mole asked without turning back to look. “This is a library built by mages for mages. To protect its contents and those who would study within its walls, a degree of anti-magic zones had to be put in place. Had you walked through one, the curses that instruct you would have come undone, and you would have been freed from them. You would, however, have reached your limits as a mage. To discard your teachers so would have been to abandon your training. We would have welcomed you to study here and perhaps you could have exceeded your limits in time, but to present that path to you without your consent would have been wrong.”

‘What part of lifting curses requires consent?’ Lock asked herself as she chased after the mole as he resumed his descent. ‘I mean, I know I’ve already turned down help already, so maybe, I guess I would have been upset. But it definitely didn’t have anything to do with getting stronger.’

Stumped by her own feelings on the curses binding her, Lock offered no further resistance as the mole led her to a small room with a few empty shelves on the wall opposite the door and a seat to the left of the entry.

“Your confusion is obvious young mage, as it should be. Your relationship with your teachers is not solely with them. There are your goals and those relationships you had before you began your journey, no less your perception of your place in the world. To be free of your teachers is not a choice you can make so casually. As such, feel free to use this chamber to think about why you have chosen this path and what your goals are. If you can come to the conclusion that you would be willing to discard your teachers, Student of Curses, then I shall allow you access to the library. You will need some time though; I have no doubt of such and will leave you to your thoughts.”

As Lock fell into the available seat in the room, the mole left, and the door again became part of a solid stone wall. Lock only stared at it for a moment before turning to her own thoughts and adorning the chamber in the writings of her diary.

~I suppose now is as good of time as any to review what I’m doing and why. It’s not actually easy to though. Most of my memories from before I was transformed by this cloak are behind a fog in my head. I’m sure that has to do with one of the curses on the living witch’s hat accompanying me, but those memories are still there. I just can’t grasp them or make out the details. It’s not like with my true name that I’ve completely forgotten, or the sensation of having arms, a tail, mouth, or even a voice that are all alien to me now. I can’t even be sure that the voice I think with is anything at all like the voice I had before my transformation. It’s been so long and combined with the curses trying to remember or even imagine it is a waste of time and energy. With the curses lifted though, it’d all come back, right?~

The hat that nested on Lock’s head took the opportunity provided to it to jump off of the mage’s head and to look at it with a faceless gaze.

~Actually, abandoning this path now would be kind of selfish. Though it’s likely given life by the curses I wear, this hat is my only friend right now. I betrayed myself to my emotions and destroyed any semblance of a relationship I had with Sonic, though the red string of fate still binds us. But he’s the only person I can clearly see from before I was cursed. I mean, it helps that I see him all the time on the TV, but even his companion, who I know is a friend I can only remember when I see him on the TV. And my other friends? I can’t see my memories of them at all past the fog. Their names and faces are all out of my reach. But I know I asked them not to help. Overcoming these curses has been part of my journey to refine myself, to grow beyond the immature girl I was who would lead Sonic and myself to the same fate as the Koco on the Starfall islands. And I nearly let the thorns this cloak grows end Sonic. To abandon all of that now and just give up would be like throwing it all in the face of my friends. I can’t do that. It’s not like me to give up either.

~It’s not like I’ve learned nothing on this journey either. I’ve definitely grown a lot stronger with magic than I’ve ever been without it. Fighting and traveling are both so effortless, even if tiring if I’m not careful. I can sustain myself without food and even feed the hungry if I’m delicate with the right spells. I’ve grown my fortune deck and figured out that the curses being conquered won’t free me but will rather grant me magic beyond what I can currently master myself. I’ve even learned how to make my own Keyhole Rings to bind magic and spells to my will. Lastly, I managed to map out the shape of the key for at least one of the Keyhole Rings binding me. It’s just figuring out this card that possesses magic that matches the key’s shape.~

Summoning the glowing key of magic she had crafted by mapping out the “dungeon” of the Keyhole Ring on her right foot, Lock stared at it for a moment before turning her attention to the Meaningless False Arcana that bore the picture of some distant town seemingly named Valsoth. It didn’t feel right, and she couldn’t quite pin down why.

~If I’m right, unlocking one curse on my feet should open up an avenue to travel in ways that I currently can’t. I’m not sure what those could be as I can already levitate, roll, ride my hammer like a broomstick, and practically fly if I expend enough of my magical strength. The risk of exhausting myself and passing out is really high if I do for too long, but it’s not like I’m wanting for ways to move.

~So, what about this card? It’s a Meaningless False Arcana, but it definitely possesses the purified spell of one of the curses on my feet. If I can figure that out, then surely, I wouldn’t have a reason to give up here and admit defeat. It’s not that giving up isn’t necessarily the more appropriate choice under the right circumstances, but I feel like if I just think about it a little longer, I can figure it out and push myself that extra bit to continue and grow into the refined version of me who can solve her own problems and not be a risk to Sonic. That almost seems silly itself though since I’m certain that after I apologize for everything we’ll part never to meet again.~

…

…

…

~NO! I can’t think like that right now because otherwise there isn’t any point to doing anything. Why give up if giving up doesn’t mean anything? At least if I push forward, I can learn and grow, maybe even help people I otherwise never could. Isn’t that what the mole was saying too? That there are still people who need my help as mage, and not the girl I was before becoming Lock? But if they’re as unreachable as the town on this card…~

Again, Lock stared at the card looking for an answer, but it offered none, not even a hint.

~As it is right now, they’re all as unreachable as the town on this card. It’s obviously where I need to go, but how do I get there if I don’t know where it is?

~Wait! Is that it?~

Summoning a card to pull her to her normal levitating, Lock scanned the chamber she had been sealed in and spotted clumps of gray grass growing through cracks in the ground. Floating over, she eyed them for a moment before attacking them with more of her cards. Cutting grass seemed like a waste of magic, but what she sought appeared as the grass easily gave, Rings scattering with their removal. Isolating one with her cards, Lock held the Valsoth card up beyond it.

~Meaningless False Arcana don’t normally have any meaning. But in its upright position this card is illustrating where I need to go. That would mean in reverse…~

Once again casting her magic through a Ring to bind the card to her magic, Lock inverted the card and changed its meaning, opening up an ethereal landscape in the form of one of the mental dungeons she had been facing as she bound other cards. Unlike when last she did, the dungeon was now coherent and the name on the card changed from Valsoth to South Vale. At his desk far above, the star-nosed mole smiled and praised Lock. “She is truly magnificent. Be it her pride or her curiosity, her attraction to unraveling the mysteries of magic is a boon too long lost from this world. Go forth than Student of Curses, face the destiny on the path before you.”

~…In reverse, the meaning of the card is where I am, and the magic of the curse is to travel where I am not. It’s not teleportation either, but literally traversing where I’m not. It’ll take a lot of magic to sustain the spell though, and I’ll be vastly weaker while maintaining it. I’ll practically be back to where I started when I was first learning. But, if I can learn spells in the land beyond this card, I’ll grow easily as I’m not ignorant now. First though… first, I conquer this card and begin making the magic of the curse my own. And I won’t fail. Not this time. Why? Because…­

In the land beyond the card, join Lock as she ventures across South Vale, meeting the people and learning their tale of isolation as she seeks the key to the first Keyhole Ring binding her. Help her assist in the people’s preparation for the coming of the King of Camelot, foretold to follow the arrival of the land’s first visitor in generations. Challenge the magic beasts that have been plaguing the land and their master, the Waker of Beasts who seeks to wake magic beasts not just from the land, but the people. Master the magic of the cards, save the land, prepare for the king, and prevent the Waker of Beasts from knowing victory and bringing catastrophe to South Vale. The fate of the land lies in the hands of a mage with none. But hope is not lost for…

…

…

…

“So, where is she?” Sonic asked as he lowered his left hand away from the wall in the chamber Lock had occupied. “It’s obviously not here either.”

“Please your majesty, I understand your impatience, but Lock is only now coming into her own. To understand her magic before she herself has is an impossibility. All I can do is collect the record of her journey as written by herself.”

Sonic eyed the star-nosed mole suspiciously as he watched him weave his hands and draw the words of Lock’s diary from all over the world into volume after volume filling the shelves of the chamber. As the mole finished, he again turned his attention to Sonic.

“I must thank you as well your majesty,” the mole began. “If not for your contributions, gathering her account of her adventure would be impossible. That said, when the time comes that she overcomes her curses, surpassing her instructors, and becoming a scholar rather than a student, might it be too much to ask that you leave that ring you wear in our care? It is after all, an artifact born of Lock’s magic and legacy. It is only right that it be kept in a library dedicated to the preservation of the history of magic.”

“It means that much to you?” Sonic asked as he held up his left hand to gaze at the simple gold ring upon his left ring finger. Rubbing it with the fingers of his right hand, he spied the red string tied to his left pinky that he could not see without the ring knowing that Lock was on the unseen other end. “I’ll keep it in mind. But don’t expect a concrete answer until I know she’s safe and free of the nasty collection of curses that she’s running around wearing like a bad fashion choice.”

“Of course, your majesty,” the mole eagerly nodded. “I only ask that you consider it. We would never think to force the hand of a king here.” “Yeah, two more things,” Sonic sighed and rested his right hand on his hip as his left dangled at his side. “Enough with the majesty nonsense. The name is Sonic, Sonic the Hedgehog. And her name is…

To be continued [?] in an Alundra meets Sonic 3D: Flickies Island inspired action RPG that will likely never be made

Prologue of the Adventures of Lock ~ FIN

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Fair Use Disclaimer Sonic The Hedgehog and all affiliated characters and logos are the express property and Copyright© of SEGA SAMMY HOLDINGS used without permission under Title 17 U.S.C Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976 in which allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. “Fair use” is use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be considered copyright infringement. This consumer written work of fiction is a non-profit transformative work primarily for personal use and IP research which can and will be taken down without warning or prior notice at the request of the copyright holder(s) should it not be recognized under “fair use”. Sonic The Hedgehog Copyright© 1990-2023 SEGA SAMMY HOLDINGS

[sonicfanj]

🩷🦔💃

While my hiatus persists (still need to finish Superstars), I've been toiling away at this and am very happy with the results. It's not great, and the frames are mess (including my favorite here ↓↓), but I'm happy with her. Please enjoy and share your thoughts!

[sonicfanj]

While the Alundra like game idea persists for the idea of what should be next, I do have a third story now. Please enjoy🙏

~Journal of Sorcerer Lock~ The Mage of Cards An Amy the Cursed Mage Story

~•~

~Hark ye who have stumbled upon this tomb and know that you have exposed yourself to the personal account of the life of Sorcerer Lock, the Mage of Cards…

~Pft–~ I’m sorry, that’s too much. It’s not wrong, but not entirely right, I’m going to start over.

~If you’re reading this, you are indeed reading the open diary of Lock the Mage. Except Lock isn’t really my name. It’s what people have started calling me though as my reputation has spread, and it naturally has to do with the seven Keyhole Rings that adorn or otherwise float around me. The whole Mage of Cards bit comes about because I use my fortune cards as a conduit for my magic. The thing is though, right now I’m no sorcerer or anything so grand. I’m just a cursed novice who wanted to get better at magic to help refine myself, and well, here I am on a grand adventure to do just that and lift the curses on me.

~I haven’t figured out what all of the curses are, but I have determined the best order to go about it.

~On each of my stary night slipper clad feet with matching tights are one Keyhole Ring each. The curses on these pretty much keep me from using my legs from my knees down. Undoing those Keyhole Rings, I believe will allow me to access more diverse movement magic than what I can manage with my fortune cards alone. Should I undo both I’m hoping to be able to traverse locations that aren’t technically there. That sounds weird, so let me move on to…

~The large Keyhole Rings floating at my sides about as far out as my wrists would be if I still had arms. I’ll get to that, but without the ability to travel places that aren’t there, I can’t project my magic in to map out the keyholes and track down the magic that shares the same shape. When I do though, the hope is to be able to have access to magic that is at least as good as having hands again, or way better. I’ll need it too if I’m going to deal with the next two.

~On my head are two more Keyhole Rings. Despite wearing a flat cap with a veil that no one but me can see through and big earring placed purple gems, both Keyhole Rings on my head are actually on a witch’s hat that normally sits up there too. The problem is that it’s alive and moves about freely. Without being able to hold it down I can’t map out either of those either. When I do, I’m sure I’ll be able to control it and put an end to the curses from it. I’m sure it’s messing with my head and also secretly sharing magic knowledge with me to help me along, but the first part is a problem. I can’t trust myself to go see my friends, even though all of this doesn’t mean anything if I don’t solve it myself. I can’t talk to them either and can’t be sure if even this diary will ever be readable by anyone thanks to it. But I’m so lonely not being able to have anyone see me in this get up that I’m writing it anyway and if you’re reading it, know you’re as much my companion as this awful hat! And I enjoy fortune telling, so I have no doubt someone will read this someday!

~Ahem. Moving on, the other reason I need control of the hat isn’t just for access to proper communication knowledge, but to also get back the key for the Keyhole Ring I made and cursed myself with. You see, the last Keyhole Ring of the curse from the purple cloak with the stary night pattern at its end and fused itself to me as the worlds tightest mouth and arm stealing mermaid dress doesn’t have a normal key. It rests on my chest and the red string of fate trails out of it and around me. On the other end is none other than who I love with every fiber of my being. Sonic the Hedgehog. He’s the last key, but without lifting the other curses, seeing him didn’t end well. I don’t have real person to person communication magic, I don’t have my mouth, and I don’t have any arms. All I could do was float there staring helplessly at him until he almost got himself impaled on the thorns that grow out of the cloak if anyone tries to reach out for me or gets too close. That meeting was a disaster, and I’m sure after successfully running away that the only fate left between Sonic and me has nothing to do with us being destined lovers anymore. I don’t even think we are anymore after that meeting. But before letting Sonic catch up with me or seeking him out again, I’m going to become the best mage I can and make these curses my own. Afterall, if Sonic and I are no longer destined lovers, then he can’t be the key to my heart to finally undo the last lock. I’m stuck in this armless, mouthless, cloak sealed form forever. But I have to at least apologize to Sonic before dedicating the rest of my life to becoming a great mage worthy of the name Sorcerer Lock, the Mage of Cards.

~Oh, that reminds me. It’s part of why I’m writing this. It’s not just to stave off the suffocating loneliness, but so I don’t forget. Like I said at the beginning, Lock isn’t my actual name. But all anyone sees is this get up which is so not my style. They don’t see me in it, and since my ability to communicate is pretty much gone it’s what people have started calling me. But if you’re reading this then please, don’t call me Lock. My name is Amy Rose, so please call me Amy. I don’t want to forget my name too. I’ve already forgotten what it feels like to talk or to use my also stolen voice. I don’t even remember what it’s like having a mouth even though my face is full under the collar of the cloak like I should still have one. It’s not like my arms which I’ve also totally forgotten how to use or what it was like having any. It’s frightening that I have too because the Keyhole Rings at my side only show up if I’m using my cards when they used to always be there before just showing up when I tried to imagine using my arms. Imagining using arms isn’t the same and they don’t respond. I’m honestly scared even using my cards won’t be enough one day, so I need to get them mapped before they disappear forever. It’s not like I can give up on them like my memories of walking and using my legs. Without them I can never undo the Keyhole Rings on the hat and that means that the curse I put on me to keep me from pursuing Sonic can’t be undone either. I wouldn’t be able to apologize then and the rest of my life would be weighed down by that one regret. I can’t do that!

~Anyway, that’s where this record of my travels begins. And you’ll be joining me today as I arrive at a rather cute village isolated here in the mountains.

~Why am I here? Because even though I’ve learned that magic exists all throughout nature, spells were crafted by people, so that means curses too. I have to find a place where magic and spells pool so I can hopefully find a magic match to the shape of the one Keyhole I have mapped out. And with that, let’s go~♥~

Depending on the mountain range, one can find idyllic valleys even in the heart of seemingly perpetual blizzards. It was such a forested location that Amy found herself descending into, her brow furrowing as she noticed a tunnel allowing vehicular traffic into the hamlet hidden in the cozy hidden forest. She did not stay frustrated for long however as vehicular traffic meant modern amenities and she gleefully allowed herself to levitate into town. The sight of a ninety-centimeter-tall armless figure in a purple mermaid dress and witch’s hat with a fortune card orbiting about them floating into town easily attracted attention and it was soon known that the mage had arrived in the small community. It hardly mattered to Amy however, at least until she chose a local coffee shop to delight herself in.

“The Mage of Cards? Here” A lady waiting in line for service at the counter asked, prompting Amy to turn invisible.

“That’s what I heard,” another lady replied. “Lock was seen here of all places. I can only imagine the trouble she’ll bring.”

~If you’re feeling bad about the response to me, it’s fine. It happens all the time. I mean, for as beautiful as this outfit looks, no one can see who’s wearing it so it’s natural to be suspicious. That, and it’s no mystery that Sonic is looking for me. I’m not sure why since it’s been months since that fateful night. Maybe Cream asked him to since I haven’t seen her since before I set out on my little trip of self-refinement. I had been writing her, but when it occurred to me that the curses on the hat probably made my letters unreadable, I stopped. Sending her blank pieces of paper because I can’t use a pen and she can’t read magic inscribed letters just seems silly. Did those envelops I dropped off even go anywhere? Either way, Sonic is looking for me, and people know. Because he isn’t sharing why beyond unfinished business in the few interview clips I’ve seen, people think I’m his enemy. It’s heartbreaking enough anytime I see him on TV or hear his voice, but thinking I might be someone Sonic sees as an enemy now…

~No! I can’t feel sorry for myself. I just need to stay focused on these curses. That and cheering myself up a little.~

The idea of trouble being brought was said in a broad sense by the lady and she was ill prepared for Amy to suddenly appear out of thin air as she looked back at the other lady she was speaking with. If Amy had her voice still, she would have laughed at the look of shocked horror on the woman’s face. Her amusement quickly turned to guilt however when both women started profusely apologizing to her. She could hardly do anything in response and did not know peace until she ordered an herbal tea by pointing at the menu with another summoned fortune care and sat outside to wait for it.

~You’re probably wondering how I’m going to eat without a mouth, and I can assure not with my nose. I’m going to use magic to extract what I need from it to keep myself going. Eating this way is one of the first things I had to learn when I was first cursed. I honestly thought I was going to die if I didn’t figure it out, and I can take from anything I want really. I like herbal tea though as herbs are very rich in magic and helps keep my magic from draining out too fast. If I use too much, I get so sleepy. I can actually sleep for months at a time it turns out if I’m not careful. When that happens, I can’t really stop myself from absorbing from everything around me just to stay alive. Which is kind of a dreadful state to be in because it means even if I wanted to waste away after what I did to Sonic my magic wouldn’t let me. It feels like an extra curse on top of all the rest. I can’t even give it away; I’ve tried but the dumb hat has stopped me. I’m trying to be friends with it, but it’s always causing me so much trouble. I swear it’s doing it on purpose. But I think an example would better help demonstrate what I mean.~

After extracting everything she could from the herbal tea and causing it to dissipate into nothing, Amy set about town in search of a demonstration of her intentions. Her search was for more than a demonstration however and she kept her magic senses on high as she drifted about town ducking into and out of alleys. Her efforts paid off eventually as she found the back door of a bakery where the quickly staling early morning, short-lived goods were being disposed of.

“Get out of there you wretch!” the employee disposing of the wasted foodstuffs yelled at a man in tatters rags who was waist deep in the trash bin in the alley. It put him in perfect position to be kicked in the side and sent rolling with the trash can. “Don’t make me call the cops!”

~It’s awful seeing how people will hurt each other when they could help each other. Maybe those baked goods are stale now, they sure smell it, but this poor man is hungry and hasn’t given up on life yet. That it’s more important to that person to throw out food that could help someone then helping them out makes me want to scream some sense into them. All I can do as I am right now though is try to help.~

From where she had again cast her invisibility spell on herself, Amy looked down the alley to where the beggar was skulking away as the bakery employee scowled after them while being sure to put a lock on the trash.

~Disgraceful.~

Her mind made up, Amy reached into herself and took hold of her own life force before turning her eyes back in the vagrant’s direction. Exactly as she expected, the hat that normally adorned her head was floating in front of her to block her line of sight to the man.

~And this is what always happens I try. This silly hat proves itself helpful and won’t let me hurt myself, not even to help someone else. But there are other ways I can help as I’ve learned. Those baked goods may be under lock and key until the trash collectors come for them, but a simple thing like that can’t stop my magic. I’ll just extract all of the nutrients from every bit of food in there and pass it on to this poor man. I’d like to do more, but…~

Though her eyes were downcast, they still smiled as Amy successfully circumvented the hat and managed to get the vagrant a full meal.

~Sorry you didn’t get to enjoy the taste; I know just how you feel. But with a full belly you should be able to find the strength to try and improve things for yourself. Best of luck!~

The demonstration for whoever might read the open diary she magically inscribed into every reasonable surface she passed while traveling over, Amy resumed her search of town for whatever else there was she had traveled there for through the frozen mountains beyond. But she soon tired and took a seat on a bench to allow her own magic to recharge. She couldn’t help but feel that the cloak that bound her did the same as she caught a slender thorn grow from it to impale a mosquito that dared drift too near. She sighed heavily through her nose at her powerlessness, her earlier act of kindness doing little to help her feel assured of her growth as a mage. Another test soon presented itself though as an explosion rocked the edge of the town.

~What was that!~

Not realizing she was still recording her open diary, Amy summoned up several of her fortune cards, the cards pulling her back to a standing levitation. As they settled into orbit around her, she rushed off after the explosion as people either stood stunned or fled. The tendency of some people to scream in their panic however told Amy immediately what she was getting into.

“It’s Eggman! Run for your lives!”

~Eggman? Here? No, it’s probably just a stray robot. He wouldn’t bother with a place like this unless it had something that he wanted. As much as he torments gods too, I’m sure he has no way to interact with magic.~

Rounding a corner and letting her cards disperse so she could slow down, Amy set about determining what she was up against. While not the nefarious Doctor Eggman himself, what appeared was too much trouble for a town far enough removed from most to not have any Wispon users or even wisps present to help. Waving an oversized drill of a right hand while tossing seeming to create giant bombs that exploded into a rain of smaller bombs the lumbering Eggman shaped mech stared down the edge of town with a glowing smile.

~Is that based on an Egg hammer?~

The robot Amy compared it to the towering machine too shared a similar heavily armored build but typically carried a two-handed hammer. In her own days of wielding toy hammer as her weapon of choice, she could boast about having beaten many of them at their own hammer swinging game. With no arms to swing her hammer and next to no control of her body physically, such feats were beyond the novice mage. Yet that did not seem to matter.

Not noticing Amy’s arrival, the Egg Driller opened up its palm and presented a new bomb for the terrified townsfolk. Tossing it up into the air, it smiled brightly as the bomb exploded into a shiny set of smaller bombs ready to rain down destruction and chaos. Such did not happen however as Amy glided across the ground and positioned herself between the town and the machine, most of the fortune cards that had been orbiting her finding their way skyward and decimating the rain of bombs. That action alone earned the mage the full attention of the robot who she glared down as she sent more fortune cards to push and drag people to safety. Her efforts seemed futile however as the crowd shifted from panic to curiosity at the sight of an unexpected hero. Amy had no time to worry however as she had to focus on moving herself as the Egg Driller lunged at her with its namesake right arm. Summoning more of her fortune cards to get her moving, Amy deftly dodged the attack, but was forced to make a spiraling shield of cards to catch the follow up backhand. As the robot jumped away it launched several missiles from its backpack unit which spiraled wildly after Amy. The rocket powered speed of the missiles forced Amy to retreat rather than destroy them allowing several to crash into the ground and send debris flying with. Not risking more destruction, she took a short hop and slammed down into the ground, her cards catching her. Exploding outward away from her, the recoil sent her spiraling like a pike well into the air. This provided the room necessary for further missiles to curve up after her only to get sliced in half by a magic imbued fortune card each.

Needing to keep the Egg Driller’s attention away from the ground, Amy cast forth enough fortune cards to form two orbiting rings around slowing her descent to a crawl. As she slowly descended, she matched eyes with the towering robot and the next exchange began.

Dropping to a knee, the Egg Driller fired off another salvo of missiles at Amy as it summoned another giant to hand. Rolling the bomb to take up where Amy could next stomp down, it set its arm to use and bored once again into the ground. This left Amy with no target and a need to dodge a spiraling salvo of explosive projectiles, a situation which became an opportunity to dance. Letting her orbiting cards pull her about through the air, Amy summoned several more to intercept the missiles while making sure to also cut the fuse of the giant bomb below her. Trapped within the greater bomb, the smaller ones within still went off and Amy braced herself for her opponent to send it flying into the air after her as it was transformed into a rather volatile spiked ball. Ready as she was, it was no surprise when it at last jetted into the air for her, the damage on the underside allowing the internal explosions to escape and fuel it like a rocket. Amy did not back down however and cast out two fortune cards spinning like a saw blade of growing diameter to split the bomb in half. Cut as it was, the internal explosions blasted the two halves harmless into the mountains that surrounded the town. It was an impressive and flashy display that nearly blinded Amy to her opponent’s spectacular achievement of reaching her elevation. It was not an achievement managed by the Egg Driller under its own power though.

~EH~~~~~!!!!! Why is a guardian statue here! And why is it so big!~

The Egg Driller became a thing of all of no interest to Amy as it was crushed mercilessly in the mouth of a stone dragon, it’s drill falling to ground below, the explosions from its remaining bombs and missiles seeming to have all of no effect on the stone beast.

~Eh-hehehehe… Right! Let’s make this a lesson about guardian statues and magic beasts. Since I’ve been looking for places where magic pools and hopefully where spells pool as well, I’ve fought quite a few. Most magical beasts aren’t too bad as I can just overpower them with an assault of magic, but guardian statues are a very different problem.~

Donning a steely look in her eyes, Amy summoned even more cards and sent them out to strike the dragon statue that closed in on her. Unlike with the bombs she had been attacking before, her cards did not even scratch the dragon, instead seeming to find resistance against an unseen barrier. Her attack proving useless, Amy was fully exposed to the jaws of the statue as the clamped down fast on her.

~The problem with guardian statues, you see, is they have magic resistance, and my magic isn’t powerful enough to penetrate it. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t other ways to beat them.~

Despite the difference in magic power between Amy’s offensive casting and the defenses of her new opponent, the magic Amy used to place cards stopping every tooth of the statue proved sufficient to keep her from becoming its second meal. Summoning  ore cards she retreated backwards out of its mouth and summoned the rest of her cards back to her to increase her speed, but the statue was not caught off guard by the fierce shutting of its jaws and turned over catching Amy full on in a powerful tail whip. The blow sent the purple clad hedgehog careening into the ground and through the forest with enough force to cause a massive dust cloud to billow up. The townsfolk could only watch in terror as the stone beast roared triumphantly, afraid they would be next. But they possessed no magic and did not interest the beast. Instead, it was magic activity in the forest that drew the beast’s attention.

Descending in hot pursuit of Amy, the guardian statue only did not crash into the ground by spreading its wings at the last possible section. The motion seemed to have saved it as several fortune cards flew under it, clearly missing their mark. Not spotting Amy, the dragon landed to better see through the trees, uprooting several with its weight and revealing that the floor of the forest had become a pit of dust. Immediately the massive statue sank, the friction between stone and dust preventing even its powerful wingbeats from lifting it. What it did achieve however was a parting of the trees to reveal the purple clad Mage of  Cards staring it down with green glowing eyes as her fortune cards danced merciless through the ground deepening the pit of dust.

~You see, even with magic there are physical limitations that have to be considered. I’ve taken worse hits from Knuckles when playing around, so I’m fine after a hit like that, mostly, but this thing is too heavy to get back out and once I pull my cards out of the ground, it’ll set instantly trapping it in the ground.~

The roar that erupted from the guardian statue was not one of defeat, and it opened its mouth wide to reveal a growing light between its jaws. Amy held her ground without fear however as she was prepared, a fact the statue came to realize as the Egg Driller’s drill filled the space above its head. It tried to twist out of the way, but the drill was brought down hard, a storm of fortune cards spiraling around it to increase its speed well beyond the limits of the robot that once wielded it.

~The tricky part with guardian statues is that their magical defenses allow them to shrug off most non magical attacks, and most magical attacks don’t work either. So, the best solution is to combine the two and overload its defenses.~

Spiraling around the drill as Amy’s fortune cards were, they served as a forward drill to meet the magic resistance of the dragon. As they peeled away the drill lowered and lowered until card and drill both bore relentlessly against the beast. All the while, Amy watched on with cold, glowing eyes as the beast released another roar. This one would prove to be it’s last as the stone of its head cracked and splintered for only a moment before the drill shattered it into a cloud of dust, the rest of its body following suit and leaving Amy standing alone in the forest, soon joined by a cheering crowd of villagers whose lives she saved from two unexpected threats that day.

~I wouldn’t say this is how my adventures have been going normally. I mean, I don’t usually have people telling me how cool I am after a fight, or how intimidating and frightening I look when staring down an opponent. I mean, I guess I do look cool. And considering my figure is really shown off by this get up I bet I look a lot more mature than I feel. Being called scary though kind of hurts. I try so hard to be cute, but it really is impossible like this. I bet Rouge could pull this off way better than me. Maybe I’ll ask her for some pointers when I finally get that far along. For now, though, I need to check out the magic ruins the guardian was protecting and see if I can’t find any clues or helpful knowledge. It’d be nice to find another mage, but I feel like if there are any this cloak is a sure sign to avoid me. Who knows though, maybe when I find the first key that will change. I hope you’ll be excited when you find my next diary entry. It’s been fun talking, but for now, I need to do secret stuff. If you’re  a mage too, you’ll have to do your own research. Best of luck~♥~

“I’m not a mage, and the research I have to do is figuring out where you went next,” sighed Sonic the Hedgehog as he sat on the edge of the ruin revealing chasm that the guardian statue had emerged from. “How did you not pass out after that when just running from me had you out for months?”

“Lock left no notes on that did she?” an old man asked Sonic as he walked up with his hands clasped behind his back. He eyed the ring on Sonic’s left ring finger, oblivious to it being constructed by burning the letters sent to Cream and having the ashes sealed within the metal. He was further without knowledge of how wearing it where he did allowed Sonic to see the end of the red string that swirled around Lock tied around his left pinky. All the old man knew was that the Ring allowed Sonic to read Lock’s notes since he traveled around the small hamlet touching it to various places where the Mage of Cards had passed through.

“I’d appreciate a hint at least,” Sonic admitted his ignorance to Amy simply absorbing the released magic of her opponent to keep herself going.

“Ho, ho, ho,” the old man laughed. “When Lock arrived, we feared her you know. Your search for her and her never waiting to meet you or speaking for herself and all. But after she saved us, we realized she must have had a good reason to avoid you. Whatever it may be, we all agreed not to betray her kindness and help you should you come through. I hope you can forgive us our kindness.”

“Nothing to be done about it,” Sonic shrugged as he stood up and dusted himself off. “If she wants to lead me on an adventure, I’ll enjoy it until she slips up and I finally catch her. She can’t outrun me forever, I’m Sonic the Hedgehog after all.”

“Ho, ho, ho! Best of luck then. I just hope your unfinished business isn’t to bring her any harm.”

“Heh,” Sonic smirked. “Trust me, I’d never hurt her by choice. Even reading about her fears about her hat I can't believe she's managed to convince herself that I hate her.”

Sonic's last sentence went unheard as he was gone in a blink before saying it, speeding off hoping to stumble upon another of Amy’s diaries. As he ran, he spied a quick glance to his left hand. Whether he was checking the red string tied around his pinky and tracing into empty air and Amy at some distance or contemplating the placement of the ring he crafted with Tails aid to help him on his quest could not be said. Regardless, he allowed himself a smirk and accelerated further. The next chapter of Lock’s journal was out there somewhere waiting to be read and to take him one step closer to the errant hedgehog girl who used to chase him. The adventure was far from over for either of them.

To be continued [?]

Journal of Sorcerer Lock, the Mage of Cards ~ FIN  

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Sonic The Hedgehog Copyright© 1990-2023 SEGA SAMMY HOLDINGS

Been enjoying a hiatus, but an idea inspired by @/XenoScarlet on Twitter was just begging to be realized.

More details after the jump!

Design wise, Amy's fortune-teller dress from SEGA of Japan's isekai stories this year is obviously the foundation with Phantom from BlazBlue inspiring the rest of the silhouette and general vibe. The curses accompanying her transformation are all designed to specifically isolate Amy, especially from the way she normally engages with the world. Her energetic, contact driven excitement is completely taken from her in this form. She can't talk, she can't reach out to others, others can't attempt to touch her, she has almost no mobility, her veil stops any form of meaningful emoting, and the hat on her head can't help at all and is more of a hinderance anyway. Well, at least these are all problems physically, since mastering magic will naturally allow her to bypass most of these problems and eventually get the keys for the Keyhole Rings keeping her trapped in this transformation. Despite all the lore though, I have no plans for this idea at the moment beyond making use of Keyhole Rings in my main AU. Still, I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts and hope that you enjoy!

[sonicfanj]

If you've made it this far, please take the time to enjoy the second story, though please know in advance that i have no continuation planned, but consider an action RPG like Alundra where Amy seeks out the keys she needs to free herself of her transformation. Regardless, please enjoy!

~ RAINDROPS ~ An Amy the Cursed Mage story ~•~

Even in a light rain making use of an umbrella was ever advisable. Most people about in the isolated mountain village did exactly that as they scurried about under the dampening gray skies. Holding an umbrella in hand however was impossible for the girl who sat upon an iron bench. A lack of arms made that task unfavorably difficult.

The girl in question was unusual in that she did not garner attention despite how she stood out amidst the plainly clothed villagers. A rich purple mermaid dress covered her from neck to toe, turning to a stary night pattern as it flared at its bottom. A slit which began just below the knee revealed matching tights and slip-on shoes purely in the stary night pattern. Opposite, a sparkling lavender veil hung from a flat cap decorated with gold chain and two large purple gems dangling like earrings hid her face. The purple witch’s hat that sat upon her head did not hide the pink hedgehog ears that escaped from her all-encompassing attire, however.

The witch’s hat should have marked the girl as strange on its own, but it hardly was compared to the golden Rings each encircling an illusory keyhole that adorned her body. One per foot, a tiny one on the hat band and a larger one dangling from the tip. The one on her chest was most unusual as a sparkling red string emerged from its keyhole and twirled in the air around the girl. Yet, just like the veil hid her green eyes from most onlookers, the girl was effectively invisible.

Her invisibility was of little concern to the girl, who turned out be Amy Rosy, the ever-cheerful hedgehog girl frequently seen chasing after Sonic on his adventures. Her current situation was the result of a curse born from the dress she wore. In truth, it was not even a dress, but a cloak that had fused itself shut to her and did things unknown to her arms and tail. Her mouth fared no better, its position hidden behind where the cloak’s collar had completely obscured her muzzle save her nose, being completely absent as far as she could tell due to a lack of any feeling or even a sense of tongue to feel around for it. Her lips were as absent, and her voice no longer existed. Communication and even movement were impossible for her under normal circumstances due to the curses affiliated with each of the Keyhole Rings adorning her. Almost.

Despite the curses of the Rings on her feet stealing away her use of her legs, Amy could still at least attempt to move her thighs, torso, and neck. Her situation was not hopeless however, even as that rainy morning’s attempts to move her thighs barely managed a nigh fused rubbing together of her upper legs just due to the tightness with which the cloak had fused to her. The answer to that problem and every other surely rested in the reason she had even come across the cloak in the first place. Magic.

‘Use a little magic to try and help out on the Starfall islands and get it into your head that you can learn to really use it,” Amy’s thoughts took umbrage against her own actions. But her thoughts did not give credit to her desire to refine herself after the events on those untouched islands where a world ending entity once was sealed. But she did not dwell on her dissatisfaction either, instead putting every ounce of effort she could into working what leg muscles she could.

‘C’mon Amy, you may be getting better at using the same tricks you did on Ouranos, but you can’t give up on using your body either. It wouldn’t do me any good to get out of this mess and not be able to use it without magic either. If that happened, I’d be better off just staying like this.’

Her thoughts were born of a frustration that had been plaguing her for longer than she could figure out in that moment. ‘How long has it been anyway? I think I might actually be forgetting what it even felt like to have arms!’

A bit of panic settling in, Amy looked up and watched the villagers going about their morning, putting their hands and arms to any number of uses. Holding umbrellas and bicycle handles, taking hold of groceries and exchanging goods, giving handshakes and hugs.

Watching a couple embrace caused a sharp pain to course through Amy’s body that she winced at with her all. Her eyes started to water, and she had to keep from sniffling so as not to compromise her ability to breathe. ‘How long has it been since I talked to anyone, no less shared a hug?’

Trying to imagine reaching out with the arms she once had to hug someone, Amy’s efforts were met with the sudden appearance of the last two of seven Keyhole Rings that adorned her body. These two floated in the air at her sides where her arms would have been, and for a moment she stared at them in wide-eyed surprise.

‘Did they disappear? When did that happen!’

Her emotions betraying her control of what magic she had managed to learn, one of Amy’s fortune cards answered her distress and appeared from thin air, swirling around her, and causing her to jump to her feet. The motion dislodged her hat, but Amy hardly cared for that as her sudden jump required her to actively control the spell that summoned the card to keep her hovering just a few centimeters off the ground before her curse disabled feet proved useless and left her to fall. It might have been better at that moment she thought to herself though as her action combined with her unobserved state put her on a crash course with an oblivious passerby. The collision itself would have bothered her, but she could not allow it as the cloak would not either and she saw the first thorn start to grow from it that prevented her from even making physical contact with others.

Not allowing it to happen, Amy summoned another fortune card and threw herself backwards onto the bench. She miscalculated the amount of magic she needed and banged her head loudly on the backrest. Her eyes started to water as her vision blurred and her ears rang, but she still pleaded for the safety of the villager.

‘Just keep walking.’

Amy’s thoughts naturally went unheard, but the banging of her skull was an entirely different matter and the hapless passerby stopped to see what the sound was. They saw nothing, however, as Amy focused on keeping herself invisible, a spell that came to her strangely naturally. It also meant that they did not see the lethally long thorns that had grown from the cloak, more continuing to stretch out as Amy struggled to wriggle down the bench and away from the villager. Yet, she could see, even as far down as the flaring end of the cloak, more thorns stretching out of the fabric towards the threat to her isolation. Before anything terrible could happen though, with a shrug the villager continued walking and Amy sighed heavily through her nose as she watched the thorns recede back into the rest of the cloak, making their appearance seem as unlikely as the sun in the night sky.

‘That was too close.’

Sitting back up, Amy sighed again as her witch’s hat suddenly plopped itself back upon her head revealing it was a living thing and not just a part of the cursed attire that entrapped her. Amy paid it hardly any heed though as she leaned back, even as it slid down and into her eyes. She had no control over it, and as far as she could tell it was hapless beyond its ability to always find its way back onto her head.

‘It’s not like I can just let you go either,’ Amy directed her thoughts towards the hat. ‘Two of the Keyhole Rings are on you and if I don’t get them unlocked, I won’t break all of the curses. Though, I wonder if you’re what stole my mouth or the Ring on my chest.’

Looking down at her chest, Amy’s attention did not linger on the Keyhole Ring for long. Instead, it was the red thread that emerged from it that took hold of attention.

‘The red thread of fate…’

While there were many meanings to that phrase, to a hopeless romantic like Amy it meant that on the other end was her destined lover. It was an easy belief to have considering the origin of the end that touched her was above her heart, but she could not see the other end. The string simply faded off, though she had noted that it did surely point somewhere and moved on its own. This simply reinforced her belief though that on the other end was Sonic the Hedgehog, as she had been once told by her fortune cards that the two were destined.

‘It’s only right that Sonic would hold the key to my heart,’ Amy mused and swooned at the idea of being freed by Sonic before shaking her head violently.

‘No, no, no Amy! You can’t go see Sonic like this. You’re anything but more refined. You’re just a mess right now and Sonic getting involved could be disastrous for him. You’re dealing with curses after all you dummy!’

She would have clapped her face between her hands if she still had them, but instead had to deal with her mounting frustration at her helplessness. Her helplessness and worsening loneliness.

‘Maybe I should try writing Cream again,’ Amy contemplated as she absently summoned a fortune card to take her to her feet once more. ‘I don’t know if she can even see the words I cast onto the paper, but writing her helps me feel less lonely and I could use the company thinking about her brings.’

Her mind made up on her next course of action, Amy allowed her body to be pulled through the air by the fortune card that orbited her. Hearing a familiar voice though stopped her in her tracks.

“Come on boys!” The rambunctiously loud voice of Vector the Crocodile, head of the Chaotix Detective agency, ordered the ninja dressed purple chameleon and pilot hat wearing bee that accompanied him. “We can’t be getting distracted by the local specialties! We’re in the middle of a job.”

“Say’s the one stopping at every food stall in town,” the chameleon countered.

“Come on, Espio,” Vector attempted to plead and bargain as he shifted the blame. “Charmy’s been wanting to try the sweets and it’s not like I can say no to him.”

“Yeah!” Charmy chipped in excitedly. “The sweets here are really good and you’re missing out!”

“Are we not on a case?” Espio inquired with heavy exasperation.

‘The Chaotix?! Why are they here?!’

Surprised was putting it lightly at how shocked Amy was to see the detectives. They normally took on small jobs that did not see them far from their office in Central City, so appearing in a remote mountain village was anything but expected. It was to a degree that it was alarming, and Amy’s thoughts began to race.

‘They’re not looking for me, right? Would Cream or Vanilla have asked them to? No. Maybe. But I asked not to be helped. I’m supposed to be refining myself, and learning to use magic so I can find the keys to undo these locks will definitely be part of that. But if they find me and interrupt my journey. Well, no, they shouldn’t be able to, I can turn invisible via magic and even Espio shouldn’t be able to find me. But what if they are just passing through? It wouldn’t hurt to say hi, right? Augh! What are you thinking Amy! You don’t have a mouth or any arms to say hi with! And it’s not like they can see it’s you in here! You’d just confuse them if you went up to them like this! And what if they are here because Cream and Vanilla don’t think you can handle this! You’d be throwing in the towel just to say hi when you can’t! That’s one thing I can’t do! I won’t give up just because I want to actually be recognized by someone and not feel so lonely! Even if I’m really, really, lonely!’

The conflict in Amy’s head was revolving and it seemed unlikely that she could make up her mind on her own. Yet, despite the odds she did reach a decision.

‘Ooh~! What can it hurt! You can always just run away if things don’t work out!’

Her mind finally made up, Amy braced herself for anything and nodded her head with fierce determination.

‘Eh?’

As she looked up, Amy paused and took in the scene around her. The rain had long stopped, and the parting clouds revealed that the sun had moved to kiss the horizon on its way to its nightly slumber. There was no sign of the Chaotix, and the villagers were well on their way to preparing for the evening themselves.

‘Wait…,’ Amy weakly pleaded as her stomach rumbled at her, a consequence of the whole day passing and using magic to keep herself upright. ‘That’s not fair…’

Shaken by her indecision paralyzing her for an entire day, Amy tried to reach out to where she had seen Vector, Espio, and Charmy. Again, the Keyhole Rings at her sides appeared serving as a cruel reminder of the curse that took her arms.

‘Stop it,’ Amy begged, but the Rings simply persisted until she gave up her attempt to reach to where none she knew stood. Then , they disappeared as surely as her arms and the memories of what it actually felt like to have them.

A tear fell to the ground from under Amy’s veil, followed by another and another, but no wailing to free her heart from the barbed wire pain that entangled it. The need to have her heart freed of its pain though gave her pause and Amy watched the red string that swirled in the air around her.

She knew better than to give in to that desire. Seeking Sonic was the worst possible thing she could do. If he saw her like this, it could result in the absolute worst outcome. The thoughts of the Koco whose love story she watched come to an end on the Starfall Islands and set her on her path of self-refinement flooded her mind as their reckless end very well threatened to be a foretelling of her and Sonic’s own if she did not refine herself. Yet the excessive sleep she needed to recover from using her magic, nor the dread of absorbing nutrients from her environment via magic, combined with that knowledge prevented Sonic the Hedgehog from standing across from the cursed mage in a clearing in some distant wood.

“What? Sonic asked in surprise as the purple clad mage appeared after a flash of lightning. The ominous, almost threatening visage put Sonic on guard as the rain came thundering down.

“Is there something I can do for you?’ Sonic asked warily, rubbing the underside of his nose with his pointer finger as he felt a sneeze coming on that he was certain was warning him of danger rather than his hay fever. Especially in the violent downpour that was turning the ground quickly to mud underfoot.

Naturally, Amy could not respond, she could do nothing more than stare at Sonic as her heart absolutely screamed in anguish, paralyzing her where her orbiting fortune card kept her aloft. In the darkness brought on by the storm Sonic could not help but notice the magically alight card.

“Wait a minute,” Sonic muttered as he noticed the design on the back of the card and recognized it almost immediately.

The familiarity of the card drew Sonic to check for other familiar features. There was not much facing the nearly fully covered mage before him, but in the downpour the witch’s hat upon their crown had its brim forced down revealing the pink-furred hedgehog ears that escaped through the holes in its sides. Those ears in combination with the fortune card all but assured Sonic who was standing before him, but before he could seek clarification, he noted the red string that was pointing directly at his right pinky finger and that the mage before him had no arms. Faced with this additional information, the tone of his question changed dramatically.

“Amy?”

As her name left his lips, the curse on the veil that hid Amy’s eyes from the world failed before Sonic. Her distraught green eyes became readily visible to him, the force of the rain no longer being enough to obscure how violently she was trembling from head to toe. Only the tears that drenched her face were hidden still by the rain.

“Amy!” Sonic repeated and took a firm step forward. “What happened!”

In the next moment, too many things happened. Knowing what the cloak would do to Sonic if he approached her terrified Amy and she attempted to retreat from Sonic’s sudden approach. But her heart completely betrayed her and the reality of Sonic reaching out for her was enough to break even her absent-minded concentration and her fortune card vanished leaving her to fall backwards into the mud. Her loss of balance was all Sonic needed to forget the danger his nose was warning him about and he dashed forward to catch Amy, his world-famous sound surpassing speed leaving a boom that reverberated with the thunder. Amy could only look on in abject horror as she knew in the mud there would be no way for Sonic to stop himself from being pierced by the inevitable thorn that would greet him. Not wanting to see her own terror reflected in Sonic’s shocked eyes, she squeezed hers fast.

‘How could I?’ Amy accused herself, her heart feeling like it was being pulled in countless directions unable to resist the horror she befell upon the one she loved with every fiber of her being. ‘I knew this would happen if I kept acting without thinking! I’M SO SORRY SONIC!!’

She knew her apology would never reach Sonic, trapped inside her head as it was, and that he would never reach her. Yet, as she splashed down in the mud, she did not feel the impact or the weight from Sonic’s direction that she expected. Hearing his voice though, Amy forced her eyes open as she turned away so as not to see what she feared awaited her.

“Amy?” Sonic asked with surprise, the sword like purple thorn with the stary night at its tip just coming up short of his throat seeking him from Amy’s chest.

Amy could not fathom how Sonic had stopped, the sneeze that marked the peak of his danger sense going off and accomplishing the impossible going unheard over the rain and thunder. The confusion in Sonic’s emerald eyes though only deepening the regret, self-loathing, and fear in hers.

“Maybe instead of trying to impale me you could try telling me what this is all about?”

‘This isn’t what I wanted… this isn’t what was supposed to happen…!’

The story being told by Amy’s eyes failed to make anything clearer, instead muddying further the bizarreness of the situation for Sonic. “What is going through that head of yours Amy? Say something!”

The one demand she could not fulfill no matter how badly she wanted to. The growing concern and anger in Sonic’s eyes. The thought of him discovering her helplessness. The fact that she almost ended his life. That her heart betrayed her. It was suddenly far more than Amy could handle and a storm of fortune cards exploded around her launching her backwards and away from Sonic. Not waiting for Sonic to reorient himself and have the chance to stop her retreat, Amy dropped to the ground and another torrent fortune cards appeared as she launched herself even higher into the air, twirling like an acrobat as she held her body straight as a pike. She refused to risk landing again and at least two dozen more fortune cards swirled into being around her, forming two rotating rings that kept her airborne and moving away from Sonic.

“Hey! You’re not getting away that easily without telling me what’s going on!”

Hearing Sonic yell angrily at her was like being hit by a towering ocean wave and being knocked out of her own body. The terror of what that could possibly mean erased any possibility of rational thought in consideration of Sonic’s actions. Seeing him ricocheting off tree branches to catch up to her only deepened her fear.

‘No! He’ll catch up in time like this! Think Amy! There has to be a way to go fast enough to at least give you a chance to get away!’

Though too panicked to think rationally about Sonic’s reaction, Amy’s mind desperate from adrenaline and a need to travel as fast or faster than Sonic pulled her mind back to the Starfall Islands. It was where her journey to master her magic began, and in the need to go as quickly as possible to help Sonic she had developed another way to use her cards for movement.

Ceasing to use her magic to keep herself upright, Amy switched to relying on the strength she had in her torso as she summoned her Piko Piko Hammer and landed on it sidesaddle style. She did not ride the hammer to the ground though, her fortune cards raced to swirl like a wheel around her and her hammer rather than a ring orbiting her waist. The pause in the moment it took to align everything nearly gave Sonic a chance to risk the thorns once again emerging from the cloak, but then Amy was propelled forward in sound shattering burst of speed. Sonic could not begin his pursuit immediately as he first had to land and find his footing in the mud. Fortunately, the light given off by Amy’s cards pointed him in the right direction and he flew as fast as he could across the muddy ground. It was too slick though to match Amy’s magical retreat in speed and Sonic took to leaping from tree trunk to tree trunk with much greater success. To terrifying success from Amy’s perspective as her impromptu magical vehicle lacked any descent control and she was wildly drifting around trees as Sonic rapidly closed in on her. If not for the sudden cliff it would have been impossible for Amy to have gotten away.

“No~!” Sonic started to yell as he overshot Amy as she relinquished her magical chariot and started to fall. Twisting in the air to catch where she would land, Sonic was unprepared as the night sky suddenly blocked his vision. “Gah!”

It hardly took even an instant for Sonic to wrestle the witch’s hat free from his face and toss it away, but there was no sign of Amy as he scanned the forest below him. Looking back toward the hat out of desperation, Sonic was shocked to see that it too had already vanished. Shocked as he was though, he still took the time to focus on landing safely. But even from ground level there was no sign of Amy or the hat, Amy’s magic allowing for a trackless retreat.

Sonic was upset about his failure to catch Amy for several reasons, his pride as the world’s fastest hedgehog letting another hedgehog get away from him in a race among them. More important than his pride though, was his confusion and concern for Amy. In a last desperate bid to get her to explain, he screamed out her name into the storm.

He did not expect that months would pass, and that Amy of all people would become just another part of his life not to look back on. But he could not stop living his life for one regret. He could only move forward, no matter how much it hurt to have failed to have done anything. It was thus a shock when the Rabbit family contacted him desperate for his help. It was even more shocking when they were the ones who had the answers behind Amy’s actions on that stormy night so long ago now.

“That–,” Sonic began to make a remark about Amy as he pinched his brow with the hand of the same arm of which the elbow propped him up at the Rabbit family table, but a warning look from vanilla the Rabbit kept his words clean, “–dummy.”

Even as clean as he kept his language, Sonic’s anger was apparent to Vanilla’s young daughter, and Cream fidgeted nervously as she risked asking the bristly hedgehog a question.

“Is it that bad Mr. Sonic?”

“Probably worse, Sonic sighed as he glared at the collection of blank sheets of paper Cream held. They were letters written in magic that only the rabbit who was Amy’s best friend could read. To all others they were just blank sheets of paper, but this was not Sonic’s first time dealing with magic. Having faced the cursed, novice mage, Sonic could clearly sense Amy’s magic on the paper. He was angry with himself for having not figured it out that night and clicked his tongue.

“Even worse than how Amy describes the curses she has?” Cream asked, visibly shaken from the fresh imagery Amy’s writing invoked and Sonic’s anger. Sonic noticed how upset Cream was getting and offered her a smile.

“She definitely wasn’t doing good like you. Great job making it through those scary letters for me!”

“Of course!” Cream beamed at Sonic’s praise and the thumbs-up he flashed her. Vanilla was not leaning in the direction of agreement to praising Cream for nearly traumatizing herself reading the contents of the letters that Amy had been sending and how they described her experience with the curses placed upon her. Noticing the mother rabbit’s expression, Sonic pushed the discussion forward. He wanted to anyway as learning what he did since the Rabbit family asked him for help when the letters stopped coming for months made him want to once again find the pink hedgehog girl he did not used to be able to shake.

“The problem is that Amy thinking these curses can help her get better at magic is too naïve. Speaking from personal experience, being cursed isn’t fun, and they only get worse the longer they hang around. I wouldn’t be in anywhere near as great of shape if not for a good friend who helped me back then.”

“Can this friend of yours help Amy, in light of you finding her first?” Vanilla asked hoping to remind Sonic why she had called him there.

“Probably,” Sonic answered Vanilla as he began scratching inside his ear with his pinky finger. He felt bad knowing he was going to have to extinguish the light that appeared in Cream’s eyes at the hope for her best friend, but he still pulled his finger free of his ear and blew on it. “Unfortunately, I can’t just get in contact with her. Amy is probably going to try to keep avoiding me too. She probably can’t shake the image of that one Koco couple she tried to help back on the Starfall Islands. She already compared them to herself, and she’s probably plugged me into the role of the other. She doesn’t want us to go through the same thing and wants to refine herself to do it. It’s too much for her though. These curses aren’t just hiding her from the world, they’re cutting off everything she is all so she can focus on learning magic. Even being Amy and her being able to accomplish those things only she can…”

“Then you’ll find her and help her, right Mr. Sonic!” Cream shouted, desperate to hear good news about Amy. Sonic smiled to her again and placed a hand on her head as he stood up.

“You bet,” Sonic offered a reassuring thumbs up yet again. “Amy owes me a race too, so I have to find her and prove her getting away was a stroke of pure luck.”

Pure luck was going to be something that Sonic needed if he were even to get a lead. Since his encounter no one had even seen the purple clad mage. The idea that on that night she had retreated from polar hemisphere to the other to get away from him was unfathomable. That the amount of magic she used to accomplish the hours upon hours long feet on top of having escaped from him in the first place left her in a state of hibernation since would have been even more shocking. Yet, to Amy who had not realized how far she had traveled and how long she had slept, the season seemed the same and as far as she could tell she had simply slept a night and not for months. The absolute absence of life in the forest below the mountain cave she exited left her feeling extremely guilty.

‘I guess I was hungry, and nothing would stay where it was become fuel for a mage.’

Summoning her trusty hammer, Amy sat on the head and began her morning routine of rubbing her thighs together. The task was performed in absent-minded habit as her thoughts were elsewhere.

‘I really messed,’ Amy thought as she sighed, though the long sleep had left her emotions far less volatile. ‘I bet Sonic thinks I hate him after that.’

Looking at the red string that still twirled around her, Amy was not so sure. “Well, at least we still share a destiny even if he does. I wonder if an apology will be enough to at least make Sonic forget about me instead of hating me.’

Tears fell from Amy’s eyes, and she tilted her head back so they would not become as raindrops upon the cloak that bound her. The gray sky above threatened to accomplish that outcome if she failed regardless, and Amy’s brow furrowed as though she were smiling wryly.

‘Meanie,” she thought to herself before turning her attention back to herself. ‘Well, I have to apologize no matter what. Sonic deserves to know what happened, even if that’s the end of our destiny. Even if it means he’ll never be the key to my heart so I can get free. It’s not like I remember my arms or voice anymore anyway. I doubt even unlocking the Keyhole Rings where my arms would be would bring them back. Where would they even go? They’d be crushed and that’d be worse than not having them.’

She wanted to laugh and cry both at the idea, but without her mouth or voice, she could only shed more tears as the first raindrops began to fall. Not wanting just to cry, Amy shifted her thoughts and looked down at the Keyhole Rings on her feet.

“I wonder, if that’s the case, then would undoing any of these restore any of my control over my body… It doesn’t make sense that it would. Wouldn’t it make more sense that instead I’d be able to use spells that require exerting more of my magic against my body? Like wouldn’t all of that movement last night have been easier if my ability to move, using my feet, wasn’t restricted. In other words, I need to get stronger too.’

Testing herself, Amy chose her right foot and began to try and force her magic into the Keyhole Ring. It easily resisted her attempts, seeming to grow more resistant the more magic she threw at it. She should have been forced to withdraw, but the hedgehog girl was stubborn, and Amy pushed herself to the point of exhaustion. As her magic waned, it became small enough to slip inside the Keyhole Ring.

‘EH~!’

Surprised and exhausted as she was, Amy did not want to waste the opportunity and traced around inside the keyhole attempting to fill its shape with her magic. It was like exploring a puzzle laden dungeon and Amy concentrated fiercely to see the complex structure filled. And then, to her surprise Amy accomplished it and had the shape of the key that would unlock the Keyhole Ring. But the magic was wrong, and it would  not turn.

‘Phooey,’ Amy huffed as her efforts seemed to be for naught. Yet she still had the key shape and let it float up before her eyes. ‘Well, it’s the right shape, so maybe I can use it to find the actual key. If it’s  a different type of magic but the same shape I just have to pick it out from the rest of the magic that fills the world. Hmm… I think I’ve passed a few places where magic seems to pool from all sorts of different sources. If I take this there maybe I can find the matching shape and trace it back from there.

‘Look at that Amy! You have a plan for the first time since we got turned into this. Right, then being able to apologize to Sonic should no longer be just a silly desire. I’ll just work my way up through each lock since I’ll need to be able to comprehend moving through space that disappears to unlock the ones at my sides. With those undone maybe I’ll have the magical dexterity to hold this silly hat down so I can trace its Keyhole Rings too! But I need to make sure I stay focused first and don’t let my heart steer me off course without thinking about it first.’

A fortune card answering her summons and letting Amy stand up as her hammer vanished, the cursed mage floated over to a nearby Ring spinning on its axis in the air.

‘Perfect!’

Having an idea of what she wanted to do thanks to tracing out the shape of the right foot Keyhole Ring, Amy grabbed the Ring with her magic and flooded the space it occupied, tracing out a complex enclosure until suddenly the Ring disappeared only to reappear closing itself into the same space as the Keyhole Ring on her chest and becoming one itself. It did not cut off the red string, which was exactly what Amy wanted, and a golden key with a Keyhole Ring as its tab floated in the air before her.

‘There! With that I won’t be able to just act on my emotions without getting paralyzed. I’ll have to think it through and come up with the right spell to free myself. And it’ll have to be rooted in an actual plan that won’t let me chase after Sonic until I’ve conquered the other six locks.

‘…

‘It’s kind of useless if I just have the key though.’

For once proving it actually had some reasonable use, the witch’s hat upon Amy’s head leapt off and gulped up the key, erasing all trace of it. Amy could easily sense it within the hat, but that did not stop the incredulous look that took over her face.

‘NO WAY!! All this time you’ve been nothing but useless and now you do something helpful! Just wait until I unlock your Keyhole Rings! Then you’ll answer to me and I’ll get all of the head magic you’re likely locking up too!

‘Wait! What about the letters I’ve been writing to Cream? Don’t tell me the magic I’ve been using isn’t actually strong enough for her to read them! If this is your fault!

‘Oh~, never mind,” Amy exhaled sharply through her nose as she calmed herself down. It’s not like I’m ever getting out of this, so I’ll just apologize to Cream when I can find a way to talk to her without a mouth. Until then, since you seem to be able to hear me, that means you get to be my friend.’

Ducking under the floating hat, Amy straightened up and forced it back onto her head. With a nod she looked off towards the horizon as the rain began to pick up.

‘No complaints either, you got it. We’re stuck with each other because there is no way Sonic will let me use him to unlock the last lock after that awful meeting. So, no more complaints about my mouth and arms from me either. I’m already used to being without them, I just have to find a way to be happy like this too.

‘Maybe after I finally apologize to Sonic, I’ll take up traveling magic research and learn everything I can about magic. Traveling just to get better at using it is fun enough, so why not?’

Thinking about the future well beyond her current point, and even her next destined meeting with Sonic, Amy set off on the adventure to undo the Keyhole Rings and free herself, planning to replace them with her own even so as to even make her cursed form her own under her own power. It was a hopeful dream full of impossible optimism. But that was Amy Rose, and she never gave up on impossible dreams. As long as she did not hurt anyone that was. Hence why she was able to ignore the twitching of the far end of what she could see of the red string around her as it traced Sonic’s search for her, all the while, the rain coming to an end and the sun coming out.        

To be continued [?]

Raindrops ~ FIN  

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This consumer written work of fiction is a non-profit transformative work primarily for personal use and IP research which can and will be taken down without warning or prior notice at the request of the copyright holder(s) should it not be recognized under “fair use”. Sonic The Hedgehog Copyright© 1990-2023 SEGA SAMMY HOLDINGS

Been enjoying a hiatus, but an idea inspired by @/XenoScarlet on Twitter was just begging to be realized.

More details after the jump!

Design wise, Amy's fortune-teller dress from SEGA of Japan's isekai stories this year is obviously the foundation with Phantom from BlazBlue inspiring the rest of the silhouette and general vibe. The curses accompanying her transformation are all designed to specifically isolate Amy, especially from the way she normally engages with the world. Her energetic, contact driven excitement is completely taken from her in this form. She can't talk, she can't reach out to others, others can't attempt to touch her, she has almost no mobility, her veil stops any form of meaningful emoting, and the hat on her head can't help at all and is more of a hinderance anyway. Well, at least these are all problems physically, since mastering magic will naturally allow her to bypass most of these problems and eventually get the keys for the Keyhole Rings keeping her trapped in this transformation. Despite all the lore though, I have no plans for this idea at the moment beyond making use of Keyhole Rings in my main AU. Still, I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts and hope that you enjoy!

[sonicfanj]

Since working on this design concept I've actually written two short stories to go with it. Here is the first and please let me know what you think!

~ A LETTER FOR CREAM ~ An Amy the Cursed Mage Story ~•~

“Mother!” the young rabbit girl cheerfully cried out as she skipped into the living room of the Rabbit family home. She was carrying an envelope above her head and waved it enthusiastically. It’s a letter from Amy!”

“Is that so, Cream?” Vanilla the Rabbit asked with a calm demeanor as she wiped her hands on her apron and moved to intercept her excited daughter.

It had been some time since they had heard from Amy who had hurried off on some adventure or another after inviting Cream along to at least see her off. Something had happened to her on her last adventure with world famous hero and adventurer, Sonic the Hedgehog, and she was eager to share a story a bout a pair of lovers whose love transcended time as well see to refining herself into a far better version of herself. Vanilla had offered to help Amy with any such refinements, but the hedgehog girl wouldn’t hear of it, claiming it was something she had to do for herself. Not one to hold back the girl who gleefully chased after Sonic and his adventures, Vanilla did not push the matter. However, the lack of communication from Amy in a fair while had made Cream start to worry, and though vanilla was sure Amy was fine, seeing Cream beam at  a letter from her best friend brought a smile to mother rabbit’s face.

“Shall I read it Cream?” Vanilla offered as she took a seat in her favorite chair with her daughter scrambling into her lap.

“Yes please, Mother!” Cream requested excitedly as the family chao, Cheese and Chocola drifted over on curious wings.

“Very well,” Vanilla allowed herself a chuckle as she accepted the envelope from Cream and opened up. “Oh my!”

“What’s the matter Mother?” Cream asked at the surprise her mother expressed while turning through the pages of the letter.

“I’m not quite sure Cream, but it would seem that Amy forgot to actually write anything in her excitement.”

“Amy rose was an excitable girl on the cusp of being a young woman and it would be no surprise if she had managed something so silly. Cream, however, did not look convinced as Vanilla took note of the envelope the blank paper had arrived in.

“My, there isn’t even anything on the envelope. However did the delivery person know to bring it here?”

“Mother, I don’t understand,” Cream confessed her confusion as she looked back at her befuddled mother. “Our address is right on the letter, and I can Amy’s handwriting from here.”

“Wha–?” Vanilla asked, growing even more confused. “I don’t believe that my eyes are going bad.”

A moment of unusual silence punctuated the confusion of the Rabbit family and Vanila could not be sure that Cream wasn’t making the whole thing up. Not wanting to upset her daughter and having a funny feeling she couldn’t quite place, she decided instead of chastising her daughter to hand her the letter. “Perhaps you can read Amy’s letter for us instead Cream.”

“Are you sure?’ Cream questioned with a worried look for her mother.

Vanilla offered Cream a reassuring smile as she assured her daughter, “Of course. It’s for you after all.”

“Okay!” Cream nodded her head and smiled brightly back at her mother before reading the letter in front of her.

~Hi Cream!~ The letter began cheerfully enough and brought an air of calm to the young rabbit that Vanilla hadn’t seen in some time.

‘Perhaps it really is best to let her work herself through it.’

“I’m so sorry I haven’t been in touch,” Cream continued reading the letter aloud, oblivious to her mother’s thoughts and concerns.

~But you wouldn’t believe the mess I’ve landed myself into this time! I mean, I’ve been in some bad spots before, but I was sure that after what happened to me on the Starfall Islands that nothing could surprise me. Boy was I wrong! I bet you’d be surprised to, but just that I wrote this letter with magic should be surprising enough.~

“Magic?” Vanilla expressed her curiosity with a tilt of her head.

“That’s what Amy says,” Cream insisted, a hint of her mother’s disbelief wedging its way into her consciousness and twisting her tone to something more forceful.

“I actually hope it works and that I’m not the only one who can see it,” Cream continued reading the letter, the words seeming a direct challenge to Vanilla’s disbelief.

~It’d be such a waste too since I get so tired using magic. It’s so funny too since I normally have so much energy, but using magic really takes it out of me right now. I’m getting better with some of the things I can use it for, but the less familiar I am with using magic the more exhausting it is and the easier I fall asleep. I’ve been falling asleep at the most inconvenient of times and I’m probably going to end up falling asleep on the floor as soon as I finish. But don’t worry, I’ll be fine. A little sleep is all I need, and it’s not like I have a choice. It’s too complicated using magic to manipulate a pen and my handwriting looks dreadful. And I tire myself out faster that way too. Ooh~! It’d be so much easier if I had my–~

“Cream, what’s the matter?” Vanilla prodded her daughter as Cream came to a trembling halt in her reading. A look of utter dread had settled onto her features and tears were welling in her eyes at whatever it was she saw on the blank paper.

“I-it’s Amy, Mother,” Cream was on the verge of crying and could barely control herself. “She lost her arms!!”

~I hope that doesn’t scare you too much Cream. I’m not sure what happened, but I really am alright. I can’t use my hammer for more than a seat right now, but that’s not a bad things since using magic to move around is pretty tiring too and it’s better than sitting on the ground. Don’t worry though Cream, I still have my legs at least. At least I’m sure I do. I can feel this cloak pressing thee together and my feet are sticking out the bottom where it parts.

~Oh right, the cloak! Everything will make a lot more sense if I explain that first.

~Well, while I was on the Starfall Islands I kind of stumbled upon the idea that I might be a lot better at magic than I would have ever guessed, so when I heard rumors of a way to train more efficiently, I ran head long after it. I’m supposed to be trying to refine myself, yet here I am running straight into trouble as always. And it’s so much too. You see Cream, I found this really pretty purple cloak with a stary sky pattern at the bottom, but when I touched it, it wrapped me up and I blacked out. When I woke up It was wrapped around me so tight there was no sign of my arms or that it ever was a cloak rather than a dress. It’s collar totally wrapped around the bottom of my head too and covered up my mouth. I can’t say anything, and my voice isn’t coming out either.

~Actually, now that I think about it, just like my arms I don’t actually feel my mouth. Hold on, let me just check…~

“It’s alright Cream,” Vanilla found herself comforting Cream for a second time as Amy’s lettered detailed her coming to the realization that despite her face being full, she seemed to lack a mouth of any kind and had no real way to check since she seemed to have been deprived of her tongue and lips in addition to any jaw functionality. Unpleasant as it was to read, Vanilla had more luck calming Cream down this time as there was no nasty spat between the mother and daughter as had happened the first time. Vanilla’s doubt and Amy’s lacking arms was too much and when she chastised her daughter Cream’s emotions and terror at Amy’s condition revealed that the girl’s emotions were anything  but an act.

“But I will have to have a stern word with Amy when next she visits,” Vanilla spoke aside to her comforting of her daughter. I have no doubt that Amy is quite overwhelmed herself by her situation, but she forgets that Cream is still so young and not at all prepared for such awful stories.”

~It’s a good thing I figured out how to use magic to feed myself. That was the scariest part of this whole adventure. I really thought I was going to die until I figured it out. But it’s not satisfying at all, and I can’t wait until I figure this all out and can enjoy one of vanilla’s homecooked meals with you again. Even if I could actually eat though, it wouldn’t be good to visit since this silly cloak grows really dangerous giant thorns anytime anyone gets close. I feel like a little kid who can’t keep her spines down!~

“What’s wrong this time Cream?” Vanilla asked as Cream paused, her tone of voice turning confused as she read Amy’s letter.

“I don’t understand mother, doesn’t Amy use that super hair relaxer because she can’t get her spines to cooperate? Cream asked as she looked back at Vanilla.

Vanilla donned a strained smile as she tried not to let her daughter know that her words would have stabbed Amy deep had she heard them. She could not dispute her daughter’s blunt observation however as the Rabbit family home had become home to more than one bottle of the product in question due to Amy’s frequent stays. And there was no doubt that Amy loved the product as Vanilla had caught her on more than one occasion fretting dramatically over what she would do if they ever stopped making it. She both wanted to look cute for Sonic no less not stab him by accident, The super hair relaxer made her quite confident with the idea of being held in Sonic’s arms snuggly and her silly daydreams would quickly get the better of her.

‘Still, sometimes I wonder if Amy is ashamed of being a hedgehog,’ Vanilla allowed her thoughts to wander a moment. ‘She seems to reject her own nature at every opportunity, and it couldn’t possibly be healthy for her. Perhaps there is still some of this refinement that she seeks that I can help her with after all.’

~That’s really the big problem however,~ Amy’s letter continued, ~is just that I think this cloak really was what I was looking for. Due to all the curses on it I’m completely dependent on magic for everything. Eating, moving, writing a letter, and probably a lot more hat I haven’t figured out yet.

~It’s just so hard sometimes. I haven’t figured out how to talk with anyone and the veil that showed up with this weird transformation doesn’t seem to let anyone see my face, though I can see them just fine. The hat that came with it isn’t much help either. It’s surprisingly alive, and I think it’s supposed to help me, but all it ever seems to do is pull me into more trouble and get itself into nothing but trouble. Maybe it’s cursed too. The weird Ring-shaped locks that are all over me are on it too. At least two of them to go with the five on me. I’m sure if I can find the keys for them, I can get free and return back to normal, but I’m actually kind of scared to go looking for them.

~The only hint I think I have to them is this weird red string coming out of the keyhole of the Ring on my chest. I think if I follow it, it might lead me to the keys, but you know, whenever I look at it twirling around me, I can’t help but think of the Red String of Fate that ties me and Sonic together. I don’t want to follow it straight to Sonic. I’m not ready to see him yet. I’m supposed to be a lot more refined when I see him, not in a pitiful state like this. So, I think I’ll continue my adventures like this for a while longer and keep getting better at magic until I can find ways around these awful curses that have taken most of my ability to use my body away from me. I’ll try to get better at writing letters too, so you don’t have to worry. Though, I’ve spotted people taking my picture, though not always before this hat goes after them, so if you look up my appearance on the net with Gemerl’s help maybe you’ll see me in this silly dress that has me feeling like a mermaid. Ooh~! I don’t care how pretty it looks, everyone is complimenting it and not me! It’s not even my style!~

“It really is pretty!” Cream breathed a wow sometime later after Vanilla had managed to get in touch with Tails who with Gemerl’s eyes acting as a projector had a number of photos on a wall in the Rabbit family home.

Just like it had been described in Amy’s letter, a girl in a purple mermaid style dress which had its top obscured by a veil adorned the wall several times over. The stary night appearance of the bottom of her dress which flared out from just after a slit began in the dress was shared by the flats shoes that she wore on her feet as well as the underside of the purple witches hate that appeared to be attacking the photographer in many of the pictures. In a few of those the purple flat cap atop the girl’s head that the veil was attached to along with a decorative gold chain and two large purple gems hanging from it like earrings was visible. But any defining features were absent save the Ring-shaped locks about her. One per foot, another dangling from the tip of the hat joined by a tiny one on the hatband, the one on her chest and two floating in the air at her sides where her arms would have once dangled. Tails wasn’t sure if he should feel sick to his stomach seeing his good friend like this or just relieved that she seemed okay regardless of her situation. Gemerl, lacking the emotional context of the horror of the scene stated its final conclusion flatly.

“Ninety-seven percent probability of being Amy Rose,” the android stated and made Tails jump.

“What? Really? How can you be sure? There isn’t anything we can use to identify her!”

“Incorrect,” Gemerl, stated. “Despite the matching appearance to her veil and dress, her tights are not opaque based on the difference in lighting per photograph.”

“Of course!” Tails exclaimed and busily set to work on his Miles Electric table. “If you account for material stretch and filter out the color range… There! You get the exact shade of pink of Amy’s fur!”

“Which can be DNA matched to within acceptable parameters for that shade combined with her height and figure to determine a 97 percent match. However, a margin of error must be accounted for as in addition to her missing appendages, she seems to have lost around an additional 17% of her body weight.”

“That’s horrible!” Cream gasped! “She’s withering away!”

“Actually, I think that’s normal for Amy,” Tails laughed and scratched at the back of head. “She’ll go on unhealthy diets at the drop of a hat and shrivel up in no time. If she has to use magic to sustain herself…”

Tails didn’t finish the thought as the word magic didn’t feel right in his mouth.

“I guess I couldn’t really say,” Tails sighed. “I’m more of a tech guy and haven’t encountered Sonic before like Sonic has.”

“But we can’t get Mr. Sonic involved, Cream insisted. “Amy begged us not to.”

Like Tails, Cream was aware of Sonic’s stories of being whisked away to worlds of magic and could not argue that he would be more help than any of them.

“I don’t believe it’s just Mr. Sonic,” Vanilla added, even as she made no attempt to hide the concern in her voice for Amy. She was not the only one who was so offput by Amy’s appearances, but she was the one who also had to speak up as the adult on Amy’s behalf. “She said she wants to refine herself, and everything in that letter implies this terrible curse she’s under is helping her do just that. It’s normal to worry for her but…”

“You’re right, Tails agreed, though he looked away and clenched his fist. “We all agreed we’d spend time doing our own thing and getting our own feet under us. It’s just…”

“But she’s Amy, Tails,“ Vanilla assured the two-tailed fox boy who was Sonic’s frequent companion. “She took the time to write Cream, to assure her that she was fine, so we know that she is.”

“You’re right,” Tails attempted a smile as he looked at the pictures still projected by Gemerl’s eyes. Not seeing Amy’s smile in kind though was not comforting and he could only wonder where Cream found the faith in her friend to stand so resolute as she too looked at the pictures of the who they all believed to be the hedgehog girl.

And they were not wrong.

Sunlight near blinded Amy as the purple witch’s hat suddenly blew off of her face where she had fallen asleep in the back of an open bed truck hauling hay.

‘I guess this is where today’s adventure begins.’

Arching her back to stretch out what muscles she did have control over without magic, Amy only lingered in the hay a moment longer. Soon, she was airborne and twirling like an acrobat, or as close an approximation as possible dressed as she was, a number of the fortune cards she kept with her twirling around her. As she descended and landed on her feet, only one did not disappear and continued to swirl around her allowing her to stand at all.

Noticing the hat that was her only company stuck in a tree, Rosy sighed through her nose. ‘You really are helpless.’

Disapproving as her thoughts were, Amy’s green eyes were smiling behind her veil. She had left the truck in a rather perilous stretch of a mountain path, and it would take everything she knew of magic and likely more to see herself back to safety.

‘Hee-hee,’ she laughed to herself in her thoughts. ‘I think I’m finally understanding why you’re always looking for ways to challenge yourself Sonic.

‘Just you wait Sonic! When I get out of this mess, there’s no way you’ll recognize me with how much I’ve grown. I just know you’ll regret it!’

Though her tone to herself was confident, Amy still spied a nervous glance at the red thread entwined around her in the air. The end opposite of where it emerged from the magical keyhole on her chest was what she primarily sought, and when she confirmed where it was pointing, she promptly traveled in the opposite direction, a handful of fortune cards appearing in orbit around her to help her levitate along. Her path was not in the service of helping the hat that followed her however and it had to rescue itself to chase after her. Of little surprise to Amy, it was not so sluggish in its self-rescue attempt as to not be able to send the hedgehog girl tumbling into more trouble and her next adventure.

To be continued [?]

A Letter to Cream ~ FIN  

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Sonic The Hedgehog Copyright© 1990-2023 SEGA SAMMY HOLDINGS

Been enjoying a hiatus, but an idea inspired by @/XenoScarlet on Twitter was just begging to be realized.

More details after the jump!

Design wise, Amy's fortune-teller dress from SEGA of Japan's isekai stories this year is obviously the foundation with Phantom from BlazBlue inspiring the rest of the silhouette and general vibe. The curses accompanying her transformation are all designed to specifically isolate Amy, especially from the way she normally engages with the world. Her energetic, contact driven excitement is completely taken from her in this form. She can't talk, she can't reach out to others, others can't attempt to touch her, she has almost no mobility, her veil stops any form of meaningful emoting, and the hat on her head can't help at all and is more of a hinderance anyway. Well, at least these are all problems physically, since mastering magic will naturally allow her to bypass most of these problems and eventually get the keys for the Keyhole Rings keeping her trapped in this transformation. Despite all the lore though, I have no plans for this idea at the moment beyond making use of Keyhole Rings in my main AU. Still, I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts and hope that you enjoy!

[sonicfanj]

Been enjoying a hiatus, but an idea inspired by @/XenoScarlet on Twitter was just begging to be realized.

More details after the jump!

Design wise, Amy's fortune-teller dress from SEGA of Japan's isekai stories this year is obviously the foundation with Phantom from BlazBlue inspiring the rest of the silhouette and general vibe. The curses accompanying her transformation are all designed to specifically isolate Amy, especially from the way she normally engages with the world. Her energetic, contact driven excitement is completely taken from her in this form. She can't talk, she can't reach out to others, others can't attempt to touch her, she has almost no mobility, her veil stops any form of meaningful emoting, and the hat on her head can't help at all and is more of a hinderance anyway. Well, at least these are all problems physically, since mastering magic will naturally allow her to bypass most of these problems and eventually get the keys for the Keyhole Rings keeping her trapped in this transformation. Despite all the lore though, I have no plans for this idea at the moment beyond making use of Keyhole Rings in my main AU. Still, I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts and hope that you enjoy!

[sonicfanj]

💞🎂💞

[sonicfanj]

RANDOM HEADCANON

Sonic used to run from Amy all the time because whenever he was with her his heart would race and he only really felt his heart do that while running, so he bolted in order to feel normal again

That headcanon makes MY heart flutter! Thank you for sharing with me!

[sonicfanj]

...continued

As I mention it, my own approach is one I'll likely use in my AU, but I'd follow through with it even in an official capacity, and that is to replace Sally's Sonic with a Sonic proxy of whom inherits Archie Sonic's history and personality since those are both integral to Sally's character structure. The inspiration for such and the belief that it can work draw from the facts that "Sonic the Hedgehog" is not Ogilvie Maurice Hedgehog's name, he has a radically different back story that involves none of Sonic's adventures, and an experimental art piece (https://www.deviantart.com/joeadok/art/A-Buncha-Hedgehogs-873228870) by @joeadok-blog exploring children who could have been born to the plethora of various parents he has across various media. As Sonic also was once called the worlds fastest hedgehog rather than the fastest thing alive, this idea, combined with Charmy in (Knuckles) Chaotix being the first insect to break the sound barrier, supports the idea of their simply being a fast heroic hedgehog in the Acorn Kingdom that get's nicknamed the Acorn Kingdom's Sonic once the actual Sonic's reputation starts to build. Now I wouldn't go with the Ogilvie Maurice name either, but this approach allows for Sally to keep her structure intact without disrupting anything that has been established for the IP as it is today. It also opens new avenues for interactions for Sally as being her “Sonic’s” foil, she would have to address his actions when interacting with Sonic and the others. It also allows for the full use of the Freedom Fighters without any overlapping narrative roles. The biggest weakness that this approach has is selling the Sonic proxy as without Sonic’s face and real world reputation, a lot of the flaws of Ogilvie Maurice Hedgehog will be put into broad daylight. Still, it is an option for bringing Sally, no less the Freedom Fighters back. It also creates new avenues of interaction and character exploration that otherwise would be lost if just trying to plug her in with disregard for her “Sonic” shaped character. So while not perfect, it does fully demonstrate why my pride as a writer creates my “yes” reason for wanting to see her brought back. And that wraps up my answer to this ask. I know it’s mostly negative, but from a solely personal bias position I really don’t desire to see her brought back. As a writer however, I think not facing the challenge is shameful regardless of whether or not one can succeed. The willingness to try and the effort taken I think deserve it, and the impact that Sally left deserves a better send off than a quiet whimper in the dark.

Part 3 of 3

Would you at least like to see Sally Again?

I'll start by asking that you bear with me, as my answer will be rather long due to it not being a simple yes or no despite the structure of the question. The problem as such is that I approach the subject from several different points of view, and they don't all land on the same answer. A simple both undermines the complexity of my relationship with the subject matter, and I feel does not satisfactorily address why it is not. To begin then I'll break down the "no reasons and then move on to the "yes" reason. Of the "no" reasons, the simplest is just that Sally never entertained me. Back when I was a kid and dropped anything originating out of SEGA of America (SoA) due to thinking my then favorite character, Metal Sonic, was about to appear in SatAM only to get roboticized Uncle Chuck, Sally nor the Freedom Fighters had any pull to make me regret it. In fact, while I remembered the tonally dark art direction and that they used their own character rather than Eggman, I actually forgot about the Freedom Fighters themselves. It wasn't until Generations first trailer came out and I finally got involved with the online fandom that I even heard about them again. But there was no nostalgia on my end as they never appealed to me enough as characters to care. However, vitriol quickly started to paint my perspective. For the next two "no" reasons it must absolutely be noted that I am an Amy fan, she's my second favorite character in the IP after only Sonic (still love Metal though), and exclusively a SonAmy shipper for ships involving Sonic himself. This bias unquestionable paints my perspective, especially learning about the shipping wars on the back end combined with the entitlement of Sally fans to insist that Sally should replace he character made by one of Sonic's creators in the games. As someone who is hugely behind the creative vision of Sonic's creators, this becomes another point of emphasis on my bias. During those early years in the fandom, Sally, the Freedom Fighters, and Archie Sonic on a whole became a personal affront to me and it would take me several years to grow up and actually give them a chance. However, even then, Sally only started to appeal to me when after the SGW and she appeared to have a sisterly relationship with Amy. At this point I was actually growing invested in her character, but as soon as it was time to travel the world they had no further interactions before Archie's end relegating her back to being uninteresting to me. More so than that though, just from he position of being an Amy fan and a SonAmy shipper, I don't want to see Amy's name dragged through the mud again by her own most vile of fans who hate Sally and would feel threatened if she was brought back (yeah, I've experienced being a victim of the nastiness of Amy fans just because I look at Amy differently from other fans), nor by the unpleasant and entitled Sally fans and Sonally shippers who would unquestionably come out of the woodwork to attack Amy , her fans, and insist she isn't needed now that Sonic's real love interest has finally returned. I don't want to see the shipping wars return, and that's enough reason on it's own to not want to see Sally back.

Part 1 of 3

[sonicfanj]

...continued

Moving out of my more hardcore personal biases, there are my logical biases that also lead to another of my "no" reasons. back in 1993 Sally was unique for a Sonic character, especially if you were oblivious to the Japanese direction of the IP. These days though she is redundant and offers nothing unique. The girlfriend who opens up Sonic's heart is covered by the character Ohshima-san personally had inherit Madonna's traits. The hard working Princess who will do whatever it takes for her kingdom has been taken by Blaze. The leader of a ragtag group of civilians and military has also now been taken by a mixture of Jewel and Lanolin in IDW. She's literally left with nothing to make her unique, no less recuring. This redundancy, makes for a hard "no" on it's own, but when you also realize that she can potentially cannibalize the roles of 4 or more characters, she starts looking very unfavorable in world building an diversification. Throw in that her entire foil to Sonic role is designed for a Sonic that is nothing like Game and IDW Sonic, and her concept itself loses direction and focus making her a weird warping parasitic sponge. Sally doesn't deserve to gain a reputation like and SEGA of Japan (SoJ) would never allow it. So even outside of my own "no" reason, Sally just ends up a bad fit and simply doesn't work with where the IP is now. This finally brings me to my "yes" reason. My writer's pride Sally as a character had a huge impact on the USA and Australian Sonic fanbases, shaping generations of Sonic fans. My biases aside, this alone speaks to the impact of her character and not attempting feels like a waste. That her send off was nonexistent seems simply wrong. That said though, as talked about above with her narrative redundancy, bringing her back isn't easy. Further, she shares a trait with Amy that (non)fans have been celebrating the removal/retconning of. Conceptually she is built around Sonic and huge portions of her character story is based on her interactions and relationship with Sonic. While the wrapped around Sonic construction of her character is something looked down upon, at least in Amy's case (it's never been considered a flaw for Tails or Metal Sonic, even when the former was written fully as a stalker in the second Paramount movie). in Sally's case it brings with it a different problem. The Sonic she was written to be wrapped around was a SEGA of America reconceptualization after Sonic was already approved as he he was in what is now best known as SEGA Sonic, but both Sonic Team and SoA. While Sonic Team and the parent branch continued to work with the original final approval, all SoA licensed projects worked not with Sonic team's Sonic, but SoA and Greg martin's Sonic. As Sally's character and development is all rooted in this version of Sonic, and not Sonic Team's, both removing or keeping it would cause her character to fail. If you remove it, she isn't Sally any more from literally her concept up, but if you keep it she's completely incompatible with Sonic Team's Sonic. While one could argue that she is more than just being built around Sonic, professional writers couldn't even see that with Amy who has quite a lot to her despite being even more constructed around Sonic than Sally. The above conundrum does however stir my pride as a writer. The idea of not addressing feels wrong on so many levels and I think any writer with any real pride should address it. Part 2 of 3

Would you at least like to see Sally Again?

I'll start by asking that you bear with me, as my answer will be rather long due to it not being a simple yes or no despite the structure of the question. The problem as such is that I approach the subject from several different points of view, and they don't all land on the same answer. A simple both undermines the complexity of my relationship with the subject matter, and I feel does not satisfactorily address why it is not. To begin then I'll break down the "no reasons and then move on to the "yes" reason. Of the "no" reasons, the simplest is just that Sally never entertained me. Back when I was a kid and dropped anything originating out of SEGA of America (SoA) due to thinking my then favorite character, Metal Sonic, was about to appear in SatAM only to get roboticized Uncle Chuck, Sally nor the Freedom Fighters had any pull to make me regret it. In fact, while I remembered the tonally dark art direction and that they used their own character rather than Eggman, I actually forgot about the Freedom Fighters themselves. It wasn't until Generations first trailer came out and I finally got involved with the online fandom that I even heard about them again. But there was no nostalgia on my end as they never appealed to me enough as characters to care. However, vitriol quickly started to paint my perspective. For the next two "no" reasons it must absolutely be noted that I am an Amy fan, she's my second favorite character in the IP after only Sonic (still love Metal though), and exclusively a SonAmy shipper for ships involving Sonic himself. This bias unquestionable paints my perspective, especially learning about the shipping wars on the back end combined with the entitlement of Sally fans to insist that Sally should replace he character made by one of Sonic's creators in the games. As someone who is hugely behind the creative vision of Sonic's creators, this becomes another point of emphasis on my bias. During those early years in the fandom, Sally, the Freedom Fighters, and Archie Sonic on a whole became a personal affront to me and it would take me several years to grow up and actually give them a chance. However, even then, Sally only started to appeal to me when after the SGW and she appeared to have a sisterly relationship with Amy. At this point I was actually growing invested in her character, but as soon as it was time to travel the world they had no further interactions before Archie's end relegating her back to being uninteresting to me. More so than that though, just from he position of being an Amy fan and a SonAmy shipper, I don't want to see Amy's name dragged through the mud again by her own most vile of fans who hate Sally and would feel threatened if she was brought back (yeah, I've experienced being a victim of the nastiness of Amy fans just because I look at Amy differently from other fans), nor by the unpleasant and entitled Sally fans and Sonally shippers who would unquestionably come out of the woodwork to attack Amy , her fans, and insist she isn't needed now that Sonic's real love interest has finally returned. I don't want to see the shipping wars return, and that's enough reason on it's own to not want to see Sally back.

Part 1 of 3